These days we frequently use low cost airlines to fly round Europe, this new concept of travelling in Europe, started in the UK (from the US) and quickly, expanded across rest of Europe taking on the traditional airlines.

The consequences is that they have rapidly became an essential option for frequent travellers who enjoy a city break or holiday without spending half of their budget on a return ticket.

The question for many of us when we are travelling with them, is it safe? How to get information about the airliner that is going to transport you from home to your favourite destination.

Often we are so exiting to go in holiday that we don’t really think of this or try to block out any of our feelings, preferring to write off as our destiny or bad luck if an accident happens, remembering that traditional airlines have crashes as well.  We all remember the mystery of this Air France flight AF447, who disappeared above the Atlantic Ocean during a flight between Rio in Brazil to Paris Charles de Gaulle who killing all 228 passengers and crew.

There is a black list of airliners worldwide; the EU provides a list of airlines which are banned from using EU airspace – and which EU travel agents are not permitted to book. This only covers non-European airlines which is what we use every day and more often in our countries.

Well, now there is another option, it is a French website where professional journalists of aviation have decided to report all about the security when you are boarding a EU plane and they made an official list with 5 categories of security level for each airliner and no frills airlines in Europe.

This website is in French but here are the explanations of these categories and where airliners are standing up in the chart.  The website link: http://securvol.com

Securvol started one year ago and became a reference in the world of aviation about security and inquiries after an incident or crash.

After the Air France crash, the French media were upset by SECURVOL who then downgraded Air France to a category B airline.

So what are these categories?

Category A :  Good level

Category B :  Correct level

Category C :  Under reserve

Category D :  To avoid

Category E : Airliner not allowed to fly in Europe

To establish this classification, they use sources from the observatory of aviation security based in Geneva, Switzerland, the OBSSAT (http://obssat.com )  who notes airliners, depending of their maintenance organisation, past incidents, past crash and numbers of casualties, the way airliners inform the press and their passengers,  age of planes ect.......

Currently you will find British airways is in category A along with easyJet but it is very easy to slip in category if  an airliner  has  a crash with victims like the one of Air France.

About no frills airlines here are the results:

Category A

AER LINGUS   is a low cost from Ireland, based in Dublin created in 1936. 4000 members of staff and the average age of planes are 7 years.

AUSTRIA AIRLINES 35 planes and average age 9 years.

BRUSSELS AIRLINES   Belgian no frills airlines very close to be downgraded to Category B.

CZECK AIRLINES 48 planes, 10 years average age and for the fourth time won the award of best European airliner.

EASY JET one of the most famous no frills airlines in Europe, created in 1995, 195 aircrafts of 3 average age.

MONARCH AIRLINES an other British airliner

SAS SCANDINAVIAN AIRLINES with 107 aircrafts of 8 year average old, despite a crash in August in 2008.

SWISS INTERNATIONAL

Category B

AIR BERLIN 101 aircrafts, average 8 years old

BMI BABY 27 aircrafts, 12 years average old

CITYJET Ireland

GERMANWINGS low cost from Germany, 26 aircrafts of an average of 6 years old.

IBERIA national Spanish carrier and low cost European airline

JET 2 British no frills airline, with an average age of 20 years old for their aircraft (quite old)

Sky Europe connected with East Europe, 12 years old average for their aircraft

THOMAS COOK created 38 years ago, 12 years old fleet average

TRANSAVIA part of the Air-France KLM group

VUELING Spain

XL AIRWAYS (France) now French based low cost airline

Category C  (under reserve)

RYANAIR,  CYPRUS AIRLINES,  FLYBE.

Category D

Only non European airliners.

Check the website:  http://www.securvol.fr/barometre.php  to see the full list, it is in French but easy to understand.

Erick Munnings