Royal Jordanian

Is Royal Jordanian safe?

Yes. Royal Jordanian has not had a fatal accident in 47 years, and most of its fleet is now less than two years old. We score it 82. The weak point is where it flies: Amman sits between Israel, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, and Iranian missiles crossed Jordanian skies during the 2026 war. That risk shows up as cancellations and reroutes more than as anything the airline does on board.

Royal Jordanian's accident record

The last fatal accident was flight 600 on 14 March 1979. A Boeing 727 from Amman was trying to land at Doha in heavy rain and a growing tailwind. The crew abandoned the approach at about 300 feet, and during the go-around the jet flew into a downburst from a thunderstorm and crashed. 45 of the 64 people on board died. Investigators blamed the downburst, which was beyond what the aircraft could climb out of, and the crew's decision to approach without due regard to the weather.

Before that, in April 1965, a Handley Page Herald flying from Beirut to Amman broke up in flight and hit a mountain near Damascus, killing all 54. The worst crash involving an Alia aircraft, at Kano in January 1973 with 176 dead, was a Jordanian-registered Boeing 707 that Alia flew for Nigeria Airways, which had chartered it to bring pilgrims home from Jeddah. The ASN record lists Nigeria Airways as the operator, and the flight was not an Alia service, so we describe it here but do not count it. Counting it would not change the score much: both crashes are more than 45 years old.

In the 47 years since Doha, the airline 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 no aircraft in an accident. The more serious damage events are old: an A310 bounced hard on its nosewheel at Shannon in December 1999 after an unstable approach in turbulence, and in October 2014 an A340 taxiing at New York JFK clipped the tail of a regional jet standing on a taxiway. The NTSB blamed the A340 captain for not keeping enough clearance. Nobody was hurt in either.

Hijackings and attacks

Like every airline in the region in the 1970s and 1980s, Royal Jordanian was a target. In June 1985 hijackers took a 727 at Beirut, flew it around the Mediterranean, released everyone and blew it up on the ground. In July 2000 a passenger smuggled a pistol and a grenade onto a flight from Amman to Damascus; an air marshal shot him and the grenade went off under a seat, injuring 15 passengers, before the crew landed back in Amman. We record these events but leave them out of the accident score, as we do for every airline.

Flying through a war zone in 2025 and 2026

Jordan was not a party to the wars with Iran, but it sits under the flight path. When Israel struck Iran on 13 June 2025, EASA told European airlines not to fly in Jordanian airspace at all; that advice lapsed in July 2025. After the US and Israeli strikes on Iran on 28 February 2026, EASA advised caution over Jordan. In July 2026 it issued a separate bulletin for Jordan, which describes Iranian missile and, to a lesser extent, drone attacks on targets in the country, air-defence fire and falling debris. The bulletin was revised on 14 October 2026: it still advises caution, but notes no military activity affecting Jordanian airspace since 9 September.

The effect on traffic was large. Queen Alia airport handled about 220 flights a day before the war and about 130 a day at the end of March 2026, as foreign airlines stayed away. Royal Jordanian kept flying. Its chief executive said in July 2026 that it had to suspend some flights and reroute others around closed airspace, at the cost of longer flights and higher insurance. Some of its routes, such as Damascus, Najaf and Benghazi, end in countries under their own EASA bulletins.

How new is the fleet?

Much newer than three years ago. In November 2023 Royal Jordanian had 27 passenger aircraft with an average age of about 13 years, including 16-year-old A319s and early Embraer jets. By October 2025 it had taken 12 new A320neos and 7 Embraer E2s, and in April 2026 the airline said about 80% of the fleet had been renewed. The seven Boeing 787-8s for long-haul flights are now the oldest part of the fleet and are getting new cabins; the first two 787-9s and three A321neos are due by the end of 2026. The company publishes no fleet-wide average age, so we score on types and delivery dates.

Incidents in the last ten years

The record is short. In March 2017 an Embraer 175 from Amman veered off the runway landing at Sulaimaniyah in northern Iraq, in fog with 500 metres of visibility; nobody was hurt and the airport closed until the jet was moved. In August 2021 an A320 from Cairo made an emergency landing at Amman and passengers left by stairs onto the taxiway; the cause was not made public. We found no fines or groundings. Jordan publishes few investigation reports in English, so a short list here partly reflects thin reporting, and we do not score it as spotless.

How to fly Royal Jordanian safely

Check EASA's bulletin for Jordan and the airline's travel updates in the week before you fly: closures in 2026 came at short notice, and the bulletin is reviewed again on 16 November 2026. If you connect in Amman to Iraq, Syria or Libya, leave a long connection and book a fare you can change, because those legs are the first to be cancelled.

How we scored it

The accident record (91) is the strongest factor: no fatal accident since 1979. Oversight (80) reflects 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 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, less a few points because Jordan publishes few reports in English, and the fleet (85) has been mostly renewed. Incidents score 76 on a short but thinly reported record. The operating environment (55) is the weakest factor, because Amman sits in a region under EASA conflict-zone bulletins. Overall 82. For a comparison close to home, see Middle East Airlines and El Al.