IBEX Airlines

Is IBEX Airlines safe?

Yes. In 26 years and about 348,000 flights, IBEX has not had an accident of any kind, and Japan's accident investigators have never had to examine one. We score it 84. What holds the score back is not what happened in the air but on the ground: in June 2025 the regulator found that a senior mechanic had been cutting corners on maintenance for nearly six years without anyone stopping him.

IBEX is a small airline that fills a gap. It flies 70-seat jets on routes too thin for the big carriers, such as Sendai to Hiroshima, Osaka Itami to Niigata and Nagoya to Oita. Many passengers book it through ANA, which sells seats on some flights under its own NH numbers, but IBEX flies them as FW flights with its own crews and certificate, and it is not owned by ANA. That makes it a separate airline in our scores, as with Air Do and Solaseed Air.

The safety record

The Japan Transport Safety Board (JTSB) has investigated three serious incidents at IBEX, all technical, and all ended in a normal landing:

• April 2016, near Hiroshima: both bleed air systems shut down at about 38,500 ft, and the crew made an emergency descent. The JTSB could not say if the leak detector malfunctioned or a real leak occurred.
• October 2019, over Shimane: the captain saw what looked like a crack in his windscreen. Following the checklist, he raised the cabin altitude, the cabin pressure fell, the oxygen masks dropped and the crew descended to 10,000 ft. The JTSB found the checklist itself asked for the maximum rate whatever the altitude.
• April 2022, over Shimane: both pilots' airspeed displays went wrong for a while at 36,000 ft, probably because ice crystals blocked the pitot tubes. The crew declared an emergency and flew on to Fukuoka.

None of these points to crew error, and the 2016 event falls outside the ten years we score. Below that level, IBEX reported 31 lesser safety troubles to the ministry in fiscal 2025, including 8 faults in the collision-avoidance system (TCAS), each fixed by replacing a part.

The 2025 maintenance warning

The real concern is the mechanic. In June 2025 the Tokyo Regional Civil Aviation Bureau issued a strict warning after IBEX found that one of its certifying mechanics, the people who sign an aircraft off as airworthy after work is done, had been shortening or skipping steps in the maintenance manual on several jobs since he qualified in September 2019. Two more mechanics had done the same.

IBEX's own safety report is frank about why it went on so long: several mechanics knew, but the gap in seniority stopped them from reporting it. The airline says it rebuilt its safety management and maintenance supervision and finished all the fixes by April 2026. Its fiscal 2025 report also lists 15 maintenance-rule errors among 31 reportable safety troubles, up from 4 maintenance errors the year before, which is what you would expect when a company looks harder.

The fleet

IBEX flies one type, the Bombardier CRJ700, and has nine of them, averaging 12.0 years at 31 March 2026. All were delivered new from 2009; the four older jets it started with were retired between 2014 and 2017. The CRJ700 is a proven regional jet but an older design without fly-by-wireFly-by-wireA flight control system in which the pilot's inputs go to computers, which then move the control surfaces. Many such systems also stop unsafe manoeuvres.More in the glossary. The bigger change is coming: in July 2026 ANA Holdings announced an alliance under which IBEX will fly ANA flights on contract from fiscal 2029, with regional aircraft shared with ANA.

How to fly IBEX more safely

• Sit where you were assigned. IBEX asks passengers not to move seats before take-off, because the CRJ's rear engines make its balance sensitive and the load sheet is calculated from the seat map.
• Allow for winter. Sendai, Niigata and New Chitose see heavy snow, and IBEX's completion rate of 98.1% in fiscal 2025 means about one flight in fifty did not operate.

How we scored it

The clean accident record (94) and Japan's strong oversight (86, no IOSA registrationIOSAThe 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) carry the score. Serious incidents (72) lose points for the 2025 maintenance warning more than for the technical faults, and the fleet (68) loses points for an ageing design. ANA Wings, which flies many similar regional routes under ANA's name, has had more serious incidents; we count them on the ANA page.