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SafetyScorer

Ranking

Safest Budget Airlines in the World 2026

Every low-cost airline we cover, worldwide. We count an airline as low-cost when its main business is cheap point-to-point fares with paid extras, including low-cost arms of bigger groups that hold their own certificate. Leisure and charter airlines are left out. Open any airline for the data and sources behind its score.

Updated · Scores update with each page

The ranking

  1. Scoot

    Scoot, Singapore Airlines' low-cost arm, has never had a fatal accident or lost an aircraft. It is overseen by CAAS, which scored 99.7% in ICAO's 2022 audit, and its 63 jets average under six years. Points go for a 787 that lost a nose wheel in 2023, a tail strike and two turbulence encounters with serious injuries.

    Score 90, grade A

  2. easyJet

    easyJet has flown since 1995 without a fatal accident or a written-off aircraft, and now flies about 576,000 flights a year on an all-Airbus fleet. It is not an IATA member, so it relies on UK, Austrian and Swiss oversight rather than IOSA. Its weak spot is a run of take-off performance errors.

    Score 89, grade A

  3. Norwegian

    Norwegian has never had a fatal accident or lost an aircraft. It flies 95 Boeing 737s, averaging 8.5 years, under Norwegian and Swedish certificates within the EASA system. It is not an IATA member, and its recent serious incidents are mostly turbulence and an airprox that injured cabin crew.

    Score 89, grade A

  4. Ryanair

    Ryanair has one of the strongest records of any budget airline. No passenger or pilot has died in a Ryanair accident in 41 years and millions of flights. It is not an IATA member, so it relies on EU oversight rather than IOSA, and a July 2026 engine failure is under investigation.

    Score 89, grade A

  5. Eurowings

    Eurowings has never had a fatal accident caused by its aircraft or operation, and it flies under German and Maltese certificates within EASA. The 2015 Germanwings crash was a deliberate act by the co-pilot, which we describe but do not count. The weak spot is an older A319 and A320 fleet.

    Score 88, grade A

  6. Vueling

    Vueling, IAG's Barcelona-based low-cost airline, has never had a fatal accident or lost an aircraft. It is overseen by Spain's AESA within the EASA system and is IOSA-registered. Its A320s average about 13 years, and Spanish investigators opened two cases on it in 2026.

    Score 88, grade A

  7. Wizz Air

    Wizz Air has carried 500 million passengers without a fatal accident or a lost aircraft, and its Airbus fleet averages 4.5 years. It flies under Hungarian, Maltese and UK certificates and is not an IATA member. Recent serious incidents, including a 2025 tail strike at Prague, keep it below the best.

    Score 88, grade A

  8. Jetstar Airways

    Jetstar Airways, the Qantas Group's low-cost airline in Australia and New Zealand, has never had a fatal accident or written off an aircraft. Its fleet is being renewed with A321LRs. Points go for several approaches and go-arounds that investigators found poorly flown, and for IOSA registration we could not confirm.

    Score 87, grade A

  9. Peach Aviation

    Peach, ANA's low-cost airline, has had no fatal accident, no hull loss and no injury accident since it started flying in 2012, under Japan's demanding regulator. It loses points for four serious incidents investigated by the JTSB, two of them caused by its own crews, and a captain who drank before a flight in 2025.

    Score 87, grade A

  10. Transavia

    Transavia, Air France-KLM's low-cost brand, has never had a fatal accident. It flies as two airlines, Transavia in the Netherlands and Transavia France, both under EASA rules. Its worst recent events were a 2022 hard landing at Nantes and a 2026 engine failure, and two-thirds of the fleet is still Boeing 737-800s.

    Score 87, grade A

  11. HK Express

    HK Express, Cathay Pacific's low-cost subsidiary, has no fatal accident or hull loss on record and flies a young A320-family fleet. Its one serious event is a September 2025 runway excursion in Hong Kong during a No. 8 gale signal, still under investigation.

    Score 86, grade A

  12. Frontier Airlines

    Frontier has never had a passenger or crew member die in an accident and has never lost an aircraft, and its all-Airbus fleet averages about five years. A trespasser killed on the runway at Denver in May 2026, a damaging hard landing in San Juan and a close call at LAX keep it from a higher score.

    Score 85, grade A

  13. Air Arabia

    Air Arabia, the Sharjah low-cost group that includes Air Arabia Abu Dhabi and Air Arabia Egypt, has never had a fatal accident and flies only Airbus A320-family jets. A 2018 take-off in the wrong direction at Sharjah and the 2026 war around its UAE hubs hold the score back.

    Score 84, grade B

  14. Spring Airlines

    Spring Airlines, China's best-known low-cost airline, has flown since 2005 without a fatal accident or a lost aircraft, using 138 Airbus A320-family jets averaging 8.7 years. It loses points because it is not in IATA, so its IOSA audit is unconfirmed, and because China's regulator publishes little.

    Score 84, grade B

  15. flynas

    flynas, Saudi Arabia's largest low-cost airline, has never had a fatal accident or lost an aircraft, and nine in ten of its jets are A320neos. Against that, an unstable approach ended in a runway excursion at Riyadh in 2024, and Houthi strikes hit Riyadh and Abha airports, both on its network, in October 2026.

    Score 83, grade B

  16. Volaris

    Volaris has never had a fatal accident or written off an aircraft since it began flying in 2006, and its all-Airbus fleet averages 6.6 years. It loses points for Mexico's two years in FAA Category 2 and for five serious incidents investigated by Mexico's accident board since 2022.

    Score 83, grade B

  17. Allegiant Air

    Allegiant has never had a fatal accident or written off an aircraft. In 2018 a 60 Minutes report and in 2019 a federal audit found too many mechanical breakdowns on its old MD-80s and weak FAA follow-up. The MD-80s are gone, but its Airbus fleet is still among the oldest in the US and it has no IOSA audit yet.

    Score 81, grade B

  18. 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 B

  19. Akasa 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 B

  20. T'way Air (Trinity Airways)

    T'way, renamed Trinity Airways in September 2026, has never had a fatal accident or lost an aircraft. Its weak point is maintenance, with repeated Korean fines in 2024 and 2025 for skipped inspections and altered records, and its fleet averaged 13.4 years in 2025.

    Score 79, grade B

  21. Vietjet

    Vietjet, Vietnam's largest airline by fleet, has had no fatal accident and no aircraft written off since 2011. It flies young Airbus jets and is an IATA member. Its weak point is landings, with pilot errors that led Vietnam's regulator to put it under special supervision in 2018, and runway excursions since.

    Score 79, grade B

  22. Gol

    Gol's only fatal accident is flight 1907 in 2006, when a business jet with its transponder off struck its 737 over the Amazon; investigators blamed the other crew and air traffic control. Gol has lost no aircraft since. It flies only Boeing 737s, regulated by Brazil's ANAC, and left Chapter 11 in June 2025.

    Score 78, grade B

  23. Southwest Airlines

    Southwest has carried billions of passengers with one passenger death in an accident, on flight 1380 in 2018. Its weak spots are a cluster of serious incidents since 2024, including two approaches that came far too low, and a fleet of 737s with no fly-by-wire.

    Score 77, grade B

  24. Cebu Pacific

    Cebu Pacific, the largest airline in the Philippines, has had no fatal accident since a DC-9 hit a mountain in 1998, and most of its jets are new Airbus neos. Its weak point is a long run of runway excursions at provincial airports, several of them at Iloilo and Butuan.

    Score 76, grade B

  25. Viva Aerobus

    Viva Aerobus has never had a fatal accident. It lost an A320 in 2021 when a badly overhauled nose gear broke at Puerto Vallarta, and its crews have since lined up with the wrong runway at JFK and a taxiway at Chicago. It is not an IATA member, and Mexico was in FAA Category 2 from 2021 to 2023.

    Score 76, grade B

  26. flydubai

    flydubai flies one of the youngest fleets in the region, and the Dubai regulator has FAA Category 1 status. But the 2016 Rostov-on-Don crash killed all 62 on board, and on 30 September 2026 a fight on the flight deck of FZ1073 sent a 737 MAX into a steep dive.

    Score 73, grade B

  27. Pegasus Airlines

    Pegasus flies a young, 88% new-generation Airbus fleet and is IOSA-registered. But in two years it lost two Boeing 737-800s in runway accidents, at Trabzon in 2018 and at Istanbul Sabiha Gökçen in 2020, where three passengers died. That record weighs more than the fleet.

    Score 72, grade B

  28. AirAsia

    AirAsia is a brand flown by separate airlines in Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines, plus long-haul AirAsia X. The group's one fatal crash, Indonesia AirAsia QZ8501 in 2014, killed 162. The fleet is almost all Airbus A320-family, but oversight quality differs by country.

    Score 68, grade C

  29. Jeju Air

    Jeju Air's 2024 Muan crash was the deadliest air accident in South Korea. Investigators say the crew shut down the less damaged engine, and the government admits the concrete berm at the runway end broke the rules. The airline has since cut flying and is renewing its fleet.

    Score 68, grade C

  30. SpiceJet

    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 C

  31. Pobeda

    Aeroflot's low-cost airline has had no fatal accidents and flies a single type, the Boeing 737-800. But it has been on the EU Air Safety List since 2022, it has no IOSA registration, and US sanctions have cut its 737s off from Boeing parts and support.

    Score 59, grade C

  32. Air 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 58, grade C

  33. Lion Air

    Lion Air, Indonesia's largest airline, has a much weaker record than Garuda Indonesia or AirAsia. Its 737 MAX crashed in October 2018, killing 189, after a known fault went unlogged, and it has written off six other jets since 2006. It is now IOSA-audited and has had no major accident since 2018.

    Score 54, grade D

Which airlines count as budget

The rule is the business model. An airline is on this list when its main brand sells low fares on point-to-point routes and charges for extras such as bags and seats. Low-cost arms of larger groups, such as Scoot, Jetstar, HK Express, Peach, Transavia, Eurowings and Air India Express, are included because each holds its own certificate and has its own page. Leisure airlines that mainly fly holidaymakers, charter operators and full-service airlines with a basic fare are not.

How the order is built

Each airline is scored on five 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 difficulty of the network for 10%. The list is those scores sorted from the highest down, so a page update moves an airline here too.

What the top budget airlines have in common

The business model helps on one factor: fleets. Most low-cost airlines fly one aircraft family, often with new jets, which keeps pilot training and maintenance simple and scores well on our fleet factor. Many also fly short, frequent hops between well-equipped airports.

The bigger difference is the home regulator. European, Australian, Japanese and Singaporean budget airlines sit near the top because their regulators are among the strongest in the world. Further down are airlines with fatal crashes in our 20-year window, such as Lion Air and Air India Express, or with a home regulator the EU does not trust, such as Pobeda, 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 since 2022 because of Russian oversight.

What the score does not tell you

The score compares safety records and systems, not comfort, delays or how a budget airline treats you when things go wrong. Fast growth can strain a budget airline's crews and maintenance, so recent incidents count. To check a single trip, look up your flight number for the aircraft type and its own score. Factors and thresholds are on how we score airlines.

Questions

Are budget airlines less safe than full-service airlines?

Not as a rule. Safety rules do not change with the fare, and a low-cost airline must meet the same regulator's standards as the flag carrier next to it. Several budget airlines are among the highest-scoring airlines we cover. The weak budget airlines on this list have weaker regulators or accident records, not cheaper tickets.

What is the safest low-cost airline?

The airline at the top of this list has the highest score we give any low-cost airline right now. The leaders are close together, so treat the top of the list as a group. Each airline page shows which factor separates them.

Do budget airlines skimp on maintenance?

Maintenance standards are set by the regulator, not by the business model. Ryanair's maintenance and training, for example, follow the same EASA rules as every EU airline. Where we found real maintenance problems at a budget airline, such as SpiceJet's enhanced surveillance in India, the airline page says so and the score reflects it.

Why are Jet2, Condor and JetBlue not on the list?

Jet2 and Condor are leisure airlines built around holiday routes, and JetBlue mixes low fares with a premium cabin, so they do not meet our rule for this list. They are still scored on their own pages and appear in the [world ranking](/rankings/safest-airlines) when their scores are high enough.

Is Southwest a budget airline?

Southwest built the low-cost model in the US and still sells mostly cheap point-to-point fares, so we include it. Its page explains its record, including flight 1380 in 2018.