Australia's flagship carrier, Qantas Airlines, has been named the world's safest airline for 2019. 

Thanks to a 60-year streak as a fatality-free commercial jetliner, Qantas tops Airlineratings.com's latest ranking of the top 20 airlines in the world. 

"It is extraordinary that 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," said editor-in-chief Geoffrey Thomas in a statement. 

Along with being the world's oldest continuously operating airline, editors note that Qantas has always been a leader in aviation, be it in the development of the Future Air Navigation System; the use of flight data recorders; automatic landings; and in real-time monitoring of engines. 

"But Qantas is not alone. Long established airlines such as Hawaiian and Finnair have perfect records in the jet era," Thomas adds. 

Read also: EVA Air earns two recognitions from AirlineRatings

Along with Qantas, other top-performing airlines include Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, All Nippon Airways, Cathay Pacific Airways, and Virgin Atlantic, among others. 

For the ranking, editors looked at audits from aviation governing bodies and lead associations; government audits; airline crash and serious incident records; fleet age; and profitability. 

Here are the world's safest mega airlines 2019 (listed in alphabetical order) 

Air New Zealand

Alaska Airlines 

All Nippon Airways 

American Airlines 

Austrian Airlines 

British Airways 

Cathay Pacific Airways 

Emirates 

EVA Air 

Finnair 

Hawaiian Airline 

KLM 

Lufthansa 

Qantas 

Qatar Airways 

Scandinavian Airline System 

Singapore Airlines 

Swiss 

United Airlines 

Virgin group of airlines (Atlantic and Australia) 

Top 10 safest low-cost airlines of 2019 in alphabetical order include: 

Flybe, Frontier 

HK Express 

Jetblue 

Jetstar Australia / Asia 

Thomas Cook 

Volaris 

Vueling

Westjet  

Wizz

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