JetSMART

Is JetSMART safe?

Yes. JetSMART, the Chilean ultra-low-cost airline, has flown since 2016 without a fatal accident or a written-off aircraft, and its Airbus fleet is the youngest in South America at about three years on average. The catch is a short record: ten years is not long enough to prove much, and two hard landings since 2020 show its pilots are not immune to rough touchdowns. We score JetSMART 84, just below Sky Airline, its low-cost rival in Chile, and well above LATAM on accident history.

Which JetSMART airline flies your flight?

JetSMART is four airlines, each with its own air operator certificate, regulator and airline code. They share the brand, the Airbus fleet and the owners, and aircraft move between them.

This page scores JetSMART Chile, the original airline. The other three fly under their own designators and are named as operators, so under our rules their events are described but not counted here. Many tickets carry a JA flight number even on Argentine domestic routes, so look for "operated by" on your booking. The registration (CC- for Chile, LV- for Argentina) does not settle it, because aircraft move between the airlines: what counts is whose certificate and crew flew the flight.

All four airlines are on IATA's member list, and IATA membership requires an IOSAIOSAThe 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 safety audit. Chile, Argentina, Peru and Colombia are all 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, the level the US gives regulators that meet ICAO standards.

Has JetSMART had any accidents?

No accident with deaths or a destroyed aircraft. The Aviation Safety Network database we use holds no JetSMART record at all.

The two events closest to an accident were hard landings:

• Puerto Montt, 21 February 2020. Flight JA151 from Santiago, an A320, touched down at about 3.6 g, bounced and landed again; none of the 179 people on board was hurt. The DGAC's final report (1937-21) classes it a serious incident. A newly hired first officer was flying a line-training sector; her descent rate reached 900 feet a minute just above the threshold and she barely flared. The captain beside her held no instructor rating, and neither he nor the instructor in the observer seat called out the error. Her training file already noted problems with the flare and the descent rate. Both main landing gear legs were loaded beyond their limits and replaced, and the aircraft did not fly again until January 2021. The DGAC asked the airline to consider pairing trainees only with instructor-rated captains.
• Montevideo, 2 November 2024. An A321neo arriving from Rio de Janeiro landed hard on runway 19 during a thunderstorm with gusty winds. The onward flight to Santiago was cancelled and the aircraft was ferried home four days later with its gear down, at low altitude, and was still on the ground in Santiago three weeks after the landing. The Aviation Herald classed the event as an accident. If an investigation confirms substantial damage, it moves from our incidents factor to the accident factor.

We found no published final report on Montevideo. Two hard landings in five years is not a pattern, but it is the main reason the incidents score is 74 and not higher.

Engines and bird strikes

In September 2021 an A320neo flying Santiago to Cali lost one of its Pratt & Whitney GTF engines at 38,000 feet, west of Iquique. The crew shut it down and diverted to Iquique, landing about 50 minutes later with 66 people on board. Another A320neo had an engine problem near Antofagasta in July 2023. A twin-engine jet is built to fly safely on one engine, and both crews did what the checklist asks.

Bird and animal strikes led to rejected take-offs at Concepción (2021), Neuquén (2024) and Ushuaia (2025). The Ushuaia and Neuquén flights were Argentine domestic flights to Buenos Aires, which only an Argentine airline may fly, so they ran under JetSMART Argentina's certificate even though the Ushuaia jet carried a Chilean registration. We describe them but do not count them here, and we would not weigh such strikes anyway: crews cannot avoid them, and stopping the take-off was the right call.

How new is the fleet?

Very new. In March 2026 the group flew 54 Airbus A320s and A321s, mostly neo models, and ch-aviation named it the youngest fleet in South America for the third year running, at 3.19 years on average. All are 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 jets of the same family, which keeps training and maintenance simple. The group says it wants more than 100 aircraft by 2030.

The weak point is shared with every A320neo operator on GTF engines: early inspections since 2023 take engines off the wing for long periods. That hurts schedules more than safety.

How hard is the network?

Average for the region. Santiago lies in a basin below the Andes, with winter fog and smog. Calama in the Atacama sits at about 2,300 metres, where thin air lengthens take-off runs. In the south, Puerto Montt has frequent rain and low cloud and Punta Arenas has some of the strongest crosswinds of any Chilean airport. International flights reach large, well-equipped airports such as Buenos Aires, Lima, Rio de Janeiro and Cali.

Flying JetSMART: what to check

• Check who operates the flight. A JA number can be flown by JetSMART Argentina or Peru; the safety picture is similar but the certificate differs.
• Keep your belt fastened over the Andes. Santiago to Buenos Aires or Mendoza crosses the mountains, where turbulence can arrive without warning.
• Book a bag if you need it. JetSMART's cabin limits are strict, and an oversized bag pushed into an overhead locker is a hazard in turbulence.

How we scored it

The young fleet (93) and an accident record with no losses (88, the score we give young airlines with a clean history) carry the score. Chilean oversight with IOSAIOSAThe 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 scores 84. The two hard landings hold serious incidents at 74, and the Andes and Patagonian weather put the environment at 72. Overall 84.