I’m not sure how many publications I have come across where the authors make an attempt to make readers believe that their article is a reference to be reckoned with simply because their titles lead us to believe a thorough research has been made and the conclusions presented in the article are a reliable source of knowledge.
One particular and notable theme is when article titles include the magic words “the world’s..” folowed by whatever it is they are trying to make us believe, based on some mickey mouse research they have carried out.
I hope to give many examples of this trick used by shameless reporters so let’s get started with a recent one that really bothered me…
On Yahoo.com (UK edition) web site the article’s title states ” The world’s safest – and least safe – airlines “.
Being a dual national, I have interests in two camps in as far as what makes me proud to be part of both my heritage, the place where I was born and have strog ties with family and friends in the country where I was born and that is Turkey. By no choice of my own and at the ge of nine, I suddenly find myself living in England and having spend fourty years of my life here in the UK, I naturally also have a British identity and a strong sense of loyalty to the UK. So, at times I find myself being proud of my British identity and at other times of my Turkish identity. Psychologically this is a great place to be as long as whatever the subject is does not put the two nations at odds against each other.
So. With my dual citizenship identity, I find myself following two threads of similar interests with my own personality biasing the degree of loyalty for my two most favourite countries in this world. Turkey and England. Notably, whilst Great Britain is made up of four contries, I have never really lived in Scotland, Ireland of Wales, so England is pretty much what I am talking about when I refer to GB and the UK.
So. Coming back to this article. I find myself feeling very annoyed when I come across articles that claim to be about something or other preceeded or followed by in-the-world. The above is one such case. And why it bothers me is that very few such articles have actually considered the whole world. Many do not even contain research beyond the continent, given that there are seven of them in the world with by today’s official statistics reflects seven billion human beings. Ignoring regional densities of populations, when we ignore 6 out of 7 continents can we really claim a story to be whatever-in-the world???
The Republic of Turkey has a very interesting and unique history, which is a story for another day and it is a member of many global institutions such as the G20 to reflect that it is in the top 10% of ecnomies, part of NATO to reflect its’s geopolitical bias to be in line with the western world and is a candidate member of the European Union. This means that it should not be ignored when we are talking about anything to do with ……in-the-world….
It should also be noted that Turkish Airlines flies to a remarkable number of national and international destinations. Whether it is a fact or not, it claims to fly to most destinations compared to any other airline.
Of course, I wouldn’t expect your aerage Joe Bloggs to be aware of this fact and that is why I mention above that I have an interst in anything Turkish because it adds to my pride of having Turkish heritage to hear good things about the country, just like it does when I hear Britain’s success in various fields when it comes to global competition.
In context of the above article, claiming to lecture us on the best and worst airlines in the world, it should not come as a surprise then that when I read it, I was shocked to see that Turkish Airlines was not deemed to be in the safest airline list, or in the least safe airline list. It simply has not been included. This makes me wonder how any reputable news organisation can claim to be addressing anyting-in-the-world this way.
I genuinely do not understand whether this is simply poor quality journalism or simply an intentional prejudice. Okay, it doesn’t mark the end of the world but, when we consider the motivation behind such an article, we have to consider that the news agency knows that it has an audience of some unknown quantity. It is not difficult to imagine that many of those will be biased by the claims in this article and make their future choices based on what they have read, leading to misinformation and unfair competition as far as Turkish Airlines are concerned. Perhaps many more airlines have been excluded from this assessment and that means the conclusions of the article are probably misleading and likely to be inaccurate to say the least.
Notably, the hash-tag cloud for the article has carefully been populated with the following (links removed) and this clearly indicates the target audience. That is, those readers who have an interest in;
- #travel
- #holiday
- #tour
- #destination
It makes me wonder what else are we being mislead about. Can we really believe what the media is telling us? Is there a sinister motivation behing what generally looks like free food for thought in the form of an innocent and informative article. I don;t know about you but I loathe being misinformed. The lies and bias make me feel like saying something but just like the purpose of a diode in an electronic circuit, life is becoming very much a one-way transmission platform where information only flows in one direction. As consumers we don’t get the opportunity to object or point out that the information is incorrect – unless of course we sell out souls and register with every news vendor for the priviledge of being able to leave comments and that is not very practicle.
Of course individually we can all object to aspect of journalism we are exposed to in our daily lives but we can’t make corrections or change the content of these articles and majority of readers will simply accept it as being a fact and be manipulated by their subliminal content.
Finally, when you think about it. Almost all airlines buy their aircrafts from a handful of aircraft manufacturers. The airline operators also depend on the companies that supply the aircrafts on training and maintenance. Indeed some human factors such as the airlines’ staff’s ability to follow rules and abide by regulations would influence the safety of air travel but in essence airline operators and the safety of passenger are pretty much dependent on the quality of the aircraft they are flying in. So it might have been a better comparison if the statistics used in that article were based on what makes of aircrafts sustained failures resulting in the number of deaths tabulated in the article than which airline was operating it at the time of failure.
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I include below a copy of the article below, just in case like many other publications on the Internet, it gets removed for one reason or other…
British Airways and Virgin Atlantic are among the 20 safest airlines on Earth, according to an annual ranking of the world’s biggest carriers.
The website AirlineRatings.com assessed 409 major airlines this year before delivering its verdict, taking into account previous incidents, the average age of their fleets, and audits from governments and the aviation industry’s regulatory bodies.
For the last four years (2014-2017) it singled out Qantas as the world’s safest airline, ahead of a chasing pack of 19 rivals, but for 2018 it listed the Australian flag carrier alongside the rest of the top 20.
BA and Virgin are the only UK airlines at the top table; others include Singapore Airlines, voted the world’s best long-haul airline by Telegraph Travel readers, Swiss, your favourite short-haul airline, as well as Air New Zealand, Emirates, Etihad, KLM and Lufthansa.
Just two US airlines were included in the top 20. Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian remain, but Delta and United, both of which appeared last year, have been dropped in favour of Emirates and Royal Jordanian.
The 20 safest airlines (in alphabetical order)
- Air New Zealand
- Alaska Airlines
- All Nippon Airways
- British Airways
- Cathay Pacific Airways
- Emirates
- Etihad Airways
- EVA Air
- Finnair
- Hawaiian Airlines
- Japan Airlines
- KLM
- Lufthansa
- Qantas
- Royal Jordanian Airlines
- Scandinavian Airline System
- Singapore Airlines
- Swiss
- Virgin Atlantic
- Virgin Australia
“Our top 20 safest airlines are always at the forefront of safety innovation, operational excellence and the launching of new more advanced aircraft like the Airbus A350 and Boeing 787,” said Geoffrey Thomas, AirlineRatings.com’s editor-in-chief.
“Qantas has been the lead airline in virtually every major operational safety advancement over the past 60 years and has not had a fatality in the jet era. But Qantas is not alone. Long established airlines such as Hawaiian and Finnair also have perfect records in the jet era.”
The website also identified what it claims are the 10 safest low-cost airlines. Aer Lingus, Flybe and Thomas Cook made the cut, but there was no room for the likes of Ryanair and easyJet.
“Unlike a number of low-cost carriers, these airlines have all passed the stringent International Air Transport Association Operational Safety Audit (IOSA) and have excellent safety records,” Thomas explained.
AirlineRatings.com isn’t the only organisation to rate carriers according to safety. Germany’s Jet Airliner Crash Data Evaluation Centre (JACDEC) does likewise, and it is Emirates that currently takes the crown, ahead of Norwegian, Virgin Atlantic, KLM and EasyJet. Neither British Airways nor Ryanair feature in the top 20.
- Emirates
- Norwegian
- Virgin Atlantic
- KLM
- EasyJet
- Finnair
- Etihad
- Spirit Airlines
- Jetstar Airways
- Air Arabia
- Vueling
- Cathay Pacific
- El Al
- Singapore Airlines
- EVA Air
- Eurowings
- JetBlue Airways
- Capital Airlines
- Oman Air
- Air Canada
Which are the world’s least safe airlines?
AirlineRatings.com also announced its lowest ranked airlines for 2018. Air Koryo, North Korea’s flag carrier, Bluewing Airlines, based in Suriname, Indonesia’s Trigana Air Service, and four Nepalese carriers – Buddha Air, Nepal Airlines, Tara Air, and Yeti Airlines – were all awarded just a single star.
There are currently around 100 airlines – most of which you probably haven’t heard of – banned from EU airspace, or facing operational restrictions, as they don’t meet European safety standards.
The airlines banned from flighting to the EU
- All airlines from the Democratic Republic of Congo (21 airlines)
- All airlines from Djibouti (1 airline)
- All airlines from Equatorial Guinea (2 airlines)
- All airlines from Eritrea (2 airlines)
- All airlines from Afghanistan (2 airlines)
- All airlines from Kyrgyzstan (13 airlines)
- All airlines from Liberia
- All airlines from Libya (7 airlines)
- All airlines from Angola, except Taag Angola Airlines (13 airlines)
- All airlines from Republic of Congo (8 airlines)
- All airlines from Gabon, except Afrijet and Nouvelle Air Affaires Gabon (6 airlines)
- All airlines from Nepal (18 airlines)
- All airlines from Sudan (12 airlines)
- All airlines from Sao Tome and Principe (2 airlines)
- All airlines from Sierra Leone (7 airlines)
- Blue Wing Airlines, Suriname
- Iran Aseman Airlines, Iran
- Iraqi Airways, Iraq
- Med-View Airline, Nigeria
- Air Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe
- Avior Airlines, Venezuela
But fear not, flying has never been safer
As Telegraph Travel reported in January, 2017 was – by some distance – the safest year in aviation history. According to the ASN there were just 10 fatal accidents involving commercial flights last year, resulting in 44 deaths. This was down from 16 fatal accidents and 303 deaths in 2016. Furthermore, none of those fatalities involved a passenger jet.
Admittedly, 2018 has seen several high-profile crashes, but the general trend is clear – air travel has never been safer.