British Airways has been ranked among the world’s ten safest airlines by the Geneva-based Air Transport Rating Agency (ATRA).

The company was one of three European operators in the list, along with Air France–KLM and Lufthansa.

US carriers dominated the rankings, with Continental, Delta, United Airlines, American Airlines, Southwest Airlines and US Airways all featuring in the top ten.

Japan Airlines was the only representative from outside Europe and America to achieve a place on the list.

In compiling its report, ATRA compared publicly available information on 100 of the largest air carriers currently operating around the world.

The study took a range of criteria into account, including the age of each company’s fleet, pilot training programmes and safety incidents over the past ten years.

Announcing the results, the agency said it is necessary to analyse ‘technical, human, organisational and external’ aspects in order to carry out an accurate assessment of airline safety.

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