Is It Still Safe To Travel By Air?

4th Aug 2014

​Air travelers from around the world are now skeptical with their safety aboard a plane following the incident involving flight MH17, one of the most deadly plane crashes in history.
But Tony Tyler of International Air Transport Association, however, claimed that flying is still among the safest ways to travel.

Just recently, or less than a week since the MH17 incident, another plane crashed into the arid Sahara desert with no survivors reported. But a day before that, a TransAsia Airways plane in Taiwan also crashed before it could safely land onto the airport nearby, also without survivors.
The MH17 incident is thought to be one of the deadliest air tragedies in history, with all 298 people on board perished.

The three successive air incidents are, by no means, normal in terms of frequency and magnitude of casualties. In just a span of one week, 462 people died in three plane crashes, making it the deadliest week in the world's aviation history.

The successive tragedies, of course, will make air travelers skeptical about safety of air travel.
But according to an analyst, this year's death toll at 991 is still not alarming if annual record is factored in since the 1940s, when commercial air travel started to flourish. Last year's death toll caused by air incidents stood at 459, which is said to be the lowest in history.

He further said that air travel, in fact, is becoming safer based on the records. On average, the last ten years (2003-2013) recorded an annual death of 1,001. Ten years before that (1993-2003), 1,581 fatalities were recorded due to air incidents. Between 1983 and 1993, the world recorded an annual death toll of 2,125.

The analyst further said that plane crashes also declined in numbers, which made him conclude that air travel is becoming safer for many people in recent years.

There are factors that need to be considered when assessing the safety in air travel, according to the analyst. It has nothing to do with the airline, per se, but on the airport infrastructure or facilities such as air traffic control.

In general, there's not much to worry about safety of air travel