Aerolíneas Argentinas

Is Aerolíneas Argentinas safe?

Yes. Argentina's flag carrier has not had a fatal accident or written offHull lossAn accident in which an aircraft is destroyed or damaged beyond economic repair. People may or may not be hurt.More in the glossary an aircraft in the 20 years we look at, and the last fatal crash in the group, a DC-9 of its then-subsidiary Austral, was in 1997. We score it 82.

The record is cleaner than the airline's reputation for strikes and politics suggests. What costs points is ordinary wear: a fleet averaging almost 12 years, a run of 737 engine failures since late 2025, and turbulence injuries on long flights across the Andes and Brazil.

The crashes in its history

Aerolíneas itself has not had a fatal accident since February 1970, when an Avro 748 crashed with 37 aboard (ASN). Its later group record includes two crashes at Austral, the domestic airline it owned and later absorbed:

• Posadas, 12 June 1988. An MD-81 flying an approach in fog, below the published minimums, hit trees 3 km short of the runway. All 22 aboard died.
• Nuevo Berlín, Uruguay, 10 October 1997. On Austral flight 2553, iced pitot tubes probably gave the crew false low-speed readings in a storm at night. The first officer extended the slats far above their limit speed, and the DC-9 went out of control and dived into marshland. All 74 died.

Since 2006 the Aviation Safety Network lists only minor accidents: an A340 clipping a parked Air France 777 at Miami in 2013, two ground collisions at Aeroparque, and an Austral E190 that ran off the far end of the runway at Ezeiza in November 2013 and was repaired.

Recent incidents

None injured anyone seriously, but the pattern is worth knowing:

• Engine failures. On 15 October 2025 a 737-800 lost its left engine with a bang and flames just after take-off from Aeroparque and diverted to Ezeiza; the JST rated it a serious incident. Six days earlier another 737-800 rejected its take-off at Trelew after an engine failure, and on 15 August 2026 a third declared a mayday for an engine failure in the climb from Aeroparque.
• Turbulence. An A330 from Miami hit severe turbulence near Rio Branco, Brazil, in October 2018; the airline counted 15 injured, eight of them taken to hospital; others injured nine over the Andes in 2019 and 12 over the Atlantic in 2022.
• Ushuaia, September 2022. An A330 briefly put one gear leg off the pavement while turning on the runway's turn pad, then departed normally.

Engine shutdowns on CFM56 engines happen across the industry and the 737 flies safely on one engine. Three in a year at one airline is still a reason to watch the JST reports.

State ownership and privatisation

Aerolíneas was privatised in 1990, with Iberia as the main buyer, and taken back by the state in 2008. President Javier Milei's government declared it "subject to privatisation" by decree in October 2024, but a sale needs Congress, which had not approved one by late 2025. In the meantime the airline cut about 1,500 jobs, reported a 2024 profit of US$56.6 million and said it needed no state funding in 2025.

For passengers the ownership question matters less than it sounds. Argentina's civil aviation authority (ANAC) certifies the airline, Argentina is in FAA Category 1FAA IASAThe US FAA's check of whether a country's aviation regulator meets ICAO standards. Category 1 means it does; Category 2 means it does not.More in the glossary, and Aerolíneas is an IATA member and so IOSA-registeredIOSAThe IATA Operational Safety Audit, an international audit of an airline's safety management and operations. Every IATA member must pass it.More in the glossary. The Junta de Seguridad en el Transporte (JST) investigates accidents, but it publishes fewer reports, more slowly, than its counterparts in Australia or France. That is part of why our confidence is medium.

How old are the planes?

The airline flew 82 aircraft in November 2025: Boeing 737-800s and 737 MAX 8s on domestic and regional routes, Airbus A330-200s on long-haul routes, and Embraer E190s inherited from Austral. AviacionNews put the average age at 11.85 years in April 2026. Two more MAX 8s arrive in 2026 and a further 12 Boeings by 2029, and four A330neos will join the long-haul fleet.

Flying Aerolíneas safely

• Keep your belt fastened on Andes crossings (Mendoza, Bariloche, Santiago) and on night flights from Miami, where most of the injuries happened.
• Expect diversions in Patagonia. Winds at Ushuaia and El Calafate often exceed limits; a go-around or diversion is the crew doing its job.
• Book the A330neo or 737 MAX when you can choose; they are the newest aircraft in the fleet.

How we scored it

The accident record (93) is the strength. Oversight (78), the fleet (70) and the Patagonian operating environment (74) are middling, and serious incidents (74) reflect the engine failures and turbulence injuries. Compare Azul in Brazil and LATAM.