Jordan Aviation

Is Jordan Aviation safe?

Mostly, with clear limits. Jordan Aviation has flown for 26 years without a fatal accident, it passes the same IATA safety audit as large airlines, and its regulator holds the top FAA rating. We score it 72. The catch is the equipment and the work: it flies old Boeing and Airbus jets on charters and wet leases, often into harder airports, and it has 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 one aircraft and had one serious overrun in the last ten years.

You are most likely to meet this airline without choosing it. It sells seats from Amman to Cairo, Jeddah, Istanbul, Tbilisi, Moscow and other holiday and pilgrimage cities, but much of its flying is for other people: tour operators, UN agencies and airlines that rent its aircraft with crews. Since June 2026 one of its 767s has flown for Ariana Afghan Airlines out of Kabul.

What happened at Kabul in 2016?

On 10 December 2016 a Jordan Aviation Boeing 737-400 was flying Herat to Kabul as Safi Airways flight 502, with 164 passengers and 9 crew. Seconds after touchdown the crew felt strong vibration, the right main landing gear broke away and the jet slid on its right engine before stopping beside the centre line. Everyone left by the slides and nobody was hurt, but the aircraft was 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.

Jordan's Civil Aviation Regulatory Commission led the investigation into the Jordanian-registered jet. It found the most probable cause was gear shimmy, a violent vibration of the main gear that the damper failed to absorb. It also found the approach was not stable: the sink rate was above 1,000 feet a minute for much of the final descent, and the jet touched down at 158 knots, 16 above its reference speed, at a 5,877-foot airport where thin air already raises ground speed. Under our rules the loss counts on Jordan Aviation's page, not Safi's, because Jordan Aviation's certificate and crew flew it.

Older events fall outside our 20-year window. The most serious was a Sabreliner business jet that landed long at Alexandria in April 2006 and was written off, with no one hurt.

The 2017 Tombouctou overrun

The event that says most about crew discipline came five months later. On 5 May 2017 another 737-400 flew a charter from Bamako to Tombouctou in northern Mali with 90 passengers and 11 crew. About five miles out, the first officer told the captain the instruments showed a 16-knot tailwind, more than the aircraft was allowed to land with. The captain carried on. The jet touched down 15 knots too fast, could not stop on the 2,170-metre runway and ran off the end onto soft ground. Nobody was hurt; the left engine's fan blades were damaged.

Jordan's regulator called it a high-energy, unstable approach and named weak crew resource management as a factor: the captain's leadership, and a first officer who did not press the point. The captain told investigators he wanted to avoid a two-hour delay to bring in fuel from another base. That is the kind of pressure charter crews in remote places face, and it is why we score incidents at 70 rather than in the upper band. We found nothing comparable since, but Jordan publishes few reports, so a quiet record here is partly a thin one.

How old is the fleet?

Old, and this is the weakest part of the score. Jordan Aviation publishes no fleet list or average age. The one aircraft with a published age is the Boeing 767-200ER it wet-leases to Ariana, which AeroRoutes put at 37 years in July 2026. Fleet trackers list Boeing 737-300s from the 1990s, A320s and an A330-200 alongside it; counts range from six to ten aircraft in all, depending on the source. The Airbus jets 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 but early versions; the Boeings are older designs. None is a type still being built. Old aircraft can be flown safely with good maintenance, but the margin then depends more on that work than on a modern design.

Oversight and audits

This is the stronger side. Jordan Aviation is an IATA member, which requires 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, and it says it has held EASA Third Country Operator approval since March 2016, so it is checked by European inspectors before flying into the EU. Jordan holds 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 no Jordanian airline is on the EU Air Safety ListEU Air Safety ListThe European Commission's list of airlines banned or restricted from flying in EU airspace because they do not meet international safety standards.More in the glossary. We give it the same oversight score as Royal Jordanian, 80, because both answer to the same regulator and both hold IOSA.

Where it flies

Amman sits under an EASA caution bulletin after Iranian missile and drone attacks in 2026, valid until 16 November 2026. Since late March 2026 Jordan Aviation has also flown from Amman's smaller civil airport at Marka. Its network adds Baghdad and Moscow, and the Ariana wet lease flies from Kabul, all three under their own EASA bulletins. We score the environment at 52, a little below Royal Jordanian's 55, for that extra exposure.

How to fly Jordan Aviation safely

If you are booked on a charter or another airline's flight, check the aircraft registration on your booking or a flight tracker the day before: a JY- registration means Jordan Aviation is flying it. Read the safety card on board: exits on a 767 or a 737 Classic may not be where you expect from newer jets. If your trip touches Kabul, Baghdad or Moscow, book a fare you can change, since those legs are the first to be cancelled when airspace closes.

How we scored it

Oversight (80) and the accident record (83) carry the score: no fatal accident in 26 years, 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 and an 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 regulator. The fleet (45) is the weakest factor, with no current-generation aircraft. Incidents (70) reflect the 2017 overrun, and the environment (52) the Middle East and Afghan flying. Overall 72. For comparison, see Kuwait Airways and Jazeera Airways, which fly the same region with much newer fleets.