Ranking
Safest Airlines in India 2026
Every airline we cover that is based in India and flies under an Indian operating certificate. That is five jet airlines, IndiGo, Akasa Air, Air India, Air India Express and SpiceJet, and four regional airlines, Fly91, Star Air, Alliance Air and IndiaOne Air. Scores combine the accident record over 20 years with the regulator, the fleet, serious incidents and the difficulty of the network, so the 2025 Air India crash, the 2026 IndiaOne Air crash and the DGCA's findings are all part of the picture.
Updated · Scores update with each page
The ranking
IndiGo
IndiGo has flown since 2006 without a fatal accident or a hull loss, on one of the youngest fleets in the world. Its weak points are a run of Pratt & Whitney engine failures, a 2023 near miss at Delhi and the December 2025 rostering collapse that brought a record regulatory fine.
Score 81, grade BAkasa Air
Akasa Air has flown since 2022 without an accident, on an all-new fleet of 42 Boeing 737 MAX jets. The record is short, though, and in 2024 the DGCA fined it for training lapses and issued three show-cause notices in a month.
Score 80, grade BFly91
Fly91, a Goa-based regional airline, has flown six ATR 72-600 turboprops since March 2024 without an accident or a published investigation. The record is very short, the aircraft are leased, there is no confirmed IOSA audit, and it flies to small airports such as Agatti in Lakshadweep.
Score 75, grade BStar Air
Star Air, the Bengaluru-based regional airline of the Ghodawat group, has flown Embraer jets since 2019 without an accident. The record is short and small, it has no confirmed IOSA audit, and India's regulator recorded 41 audit findings against it in 2025, the third-highest of any airline.
Score 73, grade BAlliance Air
India's state-owned regional airline has had no fatal accident or write-off since 2000. But its ATR crews have had four serious landing incidents since 2018, investigators twice found it did not act on its own flight data, and it had the most findings in the DGCA's 2025 audit.
Score 68, grade CAir India
Air India lost a Boeing 787 with 241 of 242 people on board at Ahmedabad in June 2025, and the cause is still unknown. India's regulator has since found repeated breaches of crew rest and airworthiness rules, and subsidiary Air India Express, which we score separately, had fatal crashes in 2010 and 2020.
Score 63, grade CAir India Express
Air India Express, Air India's low-cost arm, has had two fatal overrun crashes on tabletop runways, in 2010 and 2020, and India's investigators found systemic failures in its training and management. Since 2024 it has absorbed AirAsia India and is replacing old 737-800s with new 737-8s.
Score 63, grade CSpiceJet
SpiceJet has never had a fatal crash, but it has written off three aircraft since 2015, and India's regulator has put it under enhanced surveillance in 2022, 2023 and 2024 over maintenance and finances. In 2026 it flies a small, old active fleet while lessors pursue it in insolvency court.
Score 63, grade CIndiaOne Air
IndiaOne Air flies nine-seat, single-engine Cessna Caravans on short routes in Odisha. In January 2026 one of them lost engine oil pressure near Rourkela and crashed in a field; a passenger died of injuries. The record is four years long, the fleet tiny, and there is no confirmed IOSA audit.
Score 62, grade C
Which airlines are on the list
The rule is the operating certificate: an airline is on the list if it is based in India and flies under an air operator's certificate issued by the DGCA. Today that means nine airlines we cover. Five fly jets on trunk routes: IndiGo, Akasa Air, Air India, Air India Express and SpiceJet. Four are regional airlines that serve smaller cities, many under the UDAN scheme: Fly91 and Alliance Air with ATR turboprops, Star Air with Embraer jets, and IndiaOne Air with nine-seat, single-engine Cessna Caravans in Odisha. Vistara merged into Air India in November 2024 and AirAsia India into Air India Express a month earlier, so their flights count on those pages. flybig, a small regional airline, stopped flying in 2025 and is not on the list.
How the order is built
Each airline has five scored factors. The accident record carries 40%: fatal accidents and lost aircraft over the last 20 years, measured against how much the airline flies. Regulatory oversight counts for 20%, serious incidents and fleet for 15% each, and the network for 10%. All nine airlines answer to the same regulator, so oversight separates them mainly through IOSAThe 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 five jet airlines are IATA members and so hold a confirmed IOSA audit, and the four regional airlines are not. SpiceJet sits a little lower again for the DGCA's extra surveillance. The larger gaps come from accidents, incidents and fleet age. Factors and thresholds are on how we score airlines.
Why IndiGo and Akasa lead
IndiGo and Akasa Air have never had a fatal accident. IndiGo flies more than 400 aircraft, almost all A320neo-family jets and ATR turboprops. Akasa's 42 Boeing 737 MAX jets were all delivered new since 2022. Both have DGCA fines on their pages, IndiGo over pilot rostering and Akasa over pilot training, but neither involved an accident. Akasa's record is much shorter, which keeps its accident score below IndiGo's.
Why Air India, Air India Express and SpiceJet are lower
Air India's accident record is set by AI171. On 12 June 2025 a Boeing 787-8 bound for London Gatwick crashed shortly after take-off from Ahmedabad, killing 241 of the 242 people on board and 19 people on the ground. The preliminary report found that both fuel control switches moved from RUN to CUTOFF about three seconds after lift-off. Why they moved has not been explained, and the final report is still to come. One fatal accident in the last 15 years puts an airline in our 60–79 band for accident record, and Air India, with two other jets Hull lossAn accident in which an aircraft is destroyed or damaged beyond economic repair. People may or may not be hurt.More in the glossary since 2009, sits at the floor of it. The DGCA's findings on crew rest, duty time and airworthiness paperwork since 2024 pull its incidents score down further.
Air India Express carries the Mangalore and Kozhikode crashes. SpiceJet has no fatal crash, but its three hull losses, repeated DGCA surveillance and an old, shrinking fleet weigh on it.
Where the regional airlines fit
Fly91, Star Air and Alliance Air have had no fatal accident in the last 20 years; Alliance Air's last was at Patna in 2000. Their accident scores still sit below IndiGo's, because Fly91 and Star Air have flown only since 2024 and 2019 on fewer than a dozen aircraft each, and a short record proves less. Alliance Air has the longest record of the three but the weakest incident history: four serious landing incidents on its ATR 72s since 2018, and the most findings of any airline in the DGCA's audits in the year to July 2025. Star Air had the third-highest number of findings in the same audits. Their networks also include harder airports, such as Agatti in Lakshadweep, Shimla and small strips without instrument approaches.
IndiaOne Air sits at the bottom of the list. On 10 January 2026 one of its single-engine Caravans lost oil pressure and engine power near Rourkela, and a passenger died after the forced landing in a field. One fatal accident in a record of under four years, on two or three aircraft, is a high rate, and the investigation has not yet found why the engine failed. Its small Odisha airstrips and the forested hills on the way to Jeypore leave few places for a single-engine aircraft to come down.
What the score does not tell you
The score compares records and safety systems. It does not predict one flight. Indian routes share the same risks whichever airline you fly: monsoon rain and wind from June to September, congested Delhi and Mumbai, and short or tabletop runways at some regional airports. Since April 2025, Pakistan's closed airspace has also made westbound flights longer. For one trip, look up your flight number to see the aircraft type. For the wider region, see the Asia ranking.
Questions
What is the safest airline in India?
IndiGo and Akasa Air, which sit close together and ahead of the rest. Neither has had a fatal accident or lost an aircraft, both fly very young Airbus or Boeing fleets, and both hold a confirmed IOSAThe 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 audit. IndiGo has the much longer record, about 20 years against Akasa's four.
Is Air India safe to fly after the crash?
Most Air India flights are on modern aircraft and arrive without incident, but its record is weaker than IndiGo's or Akasa's. The cause of the AI171 crash at Ahmedabad in June 2025 is still unknown. Investigators found both engine fuel switches moved to cutoff seconds after take-off, and an examination of the switch has found no abnormality. Since then the DGCA has issued notices over crew rest and training and fined Air India over a lapsed airworthiness certificate.
Is IndiGo safe?
Yes, on its record. IndiGo has flown since August 2006 without a fatal accident or a written-off aircraft, on one of the youngest large fleets in the world. Its weak points are Pratt & Whitney engine problems on A320neos, all of which ended in safe landings, a 2023 near miss at Delhi, and a record DGCA fine in January 2026 after it failed to roster enough pilots under new duty-time rules.
Is SpiceJet safe?
SpiceJet has never had a fatal crash, but three of its aircraft were Hull lossAn accident in which an aircraft is destroyed or damaged beyond economic repair. People may or may not be hurt.More in the glossary in landing accidents in 2015 and 2019. The DGCA cut it to half its flights in 2022 after a run of technical faults, citing poor internal safety oversight and maintenance, and found engineering deficiencies again in 2024. It now flies a small, old active fleet while lessors pursue it in insolvency court.
Is Air India Express safe?
It is a separate airline from Air India, with its own certificate, and its record is mixed. It had two fatal landing overruns on tabletop runways, at Mangalore in 2010 and Kozhikode in 2020, and India's investigators blamed training and company policies as well as the crew. It is replacing old 737-800s with new 737-8s.
Are India's regional airlines safe?
Fly91, Star Air and Alliance Air have had no fatal accident in the last 20 years. IndiaOne Air, which flies single-engine Cessna Caravans in Odisha, had one in January 2026, when an aircraft lost engine power near Rourkela and a passenger died. None of the four has a confirmed IOSAThe 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 audit, and Fly91, Star Air and IndiaOne Air have short records on small fleets. Alliance Air, the state-owned ATR airline, has had four serious landing incidents since 2018 and had the most findings in the DGCA's 2025 audits.
How good is India's aviation regulator, the DGCA?
India's DGCA scored 85.49% in ICAO's 2022 audit, and the US FAA rates India FAA 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, its top level, after a downgrade from 2014 to 2015. No Indian airline is on the EU 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. That puts the DGCA below regulators such as EASA or Singapore's CAAS, but above Nepal's, whose airlines are all on the EU list.