Three months ago, when I told my dad that the air tickets I bought for my Hokkaido trip were of Korean Air, he wasn’t very happy. I bought the tickets just becuz of its price. For some reason, the tickets of KAL was cheaper than other major airlines (e.g. Cathay, JAL, ANA) by more than USD 500. Yes, there was a trade-off – a five-hour waiting in Seoul Incheon Airport. But, I didn’t mind at all, for every hour I wait would be a hundred buck I save 
Then, my dad said: besides the five-hour waiting, Korean Air wasn’t a good airline anyway, for it’s not safe…
Humm… that I didn’t know, hence, couldn’t judge whether what he said was true. But since I was very happy with the big saving and didn’t feel especially unsafe flying KAL, I traveled as planned; in fact, I had a very good flying experience with KAL this time (mainly becuz of its yummy bibimbap haha 
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But nevertheless, the question about airline safety has kept lingering in my mind… Which is the safest airline in the world? And which one is the most dangerous? I did some research, and surprisingly, found that there actually was no one commonly acknowledged ranking for airline safety.
This is because evaluating airline safety and ranking airlines is an extremely difficult task. There are many factors that contribute to the safety of an airline, for examples, accident history, maintenance procedures, age of fleet, types of training programs, etc. And safety doesn’t always depend on the airline itself too. What about factors such as airport security in cases of hijackings, bombing attempts, etc?
And there are so many different ways to analyze past accident data. Should we rank airline safety based on the number of hours flown? Or by the passenger miles completed? Or by the number of trip made?
And, air crashes are very rare events (fortunately!). With an average of one crash for every three million takeoffs, there are too few fatal accidents to serve as a basis for reliable statistics.
But anyways, here are two websites with some flight safety related data and rankings that you may find helpful.
Aviation Safety Network – Airlines’ Accident History
There is an interesting stats stated in the Airline Accident Rates page.
Aviation accidents are extremely rare, with the probability of a passenger being killed on a single flight at approximately eight million-to-one. If a passenger boarded a flight at random, once a day, everyday, it would statistically be over 21,000 years before he or she would be killed.
Does this make those with aviophobia (fear of flying) feeling any better? haha
KAL Bibimbap, the best airplane meal I have had. It is used to be served only in the first class and business class. But apparently, this has changed. Now econ class passengers can have this too
Seoul Incheon Airport is a nice one; new, spacious, and comfy.
First, by way of introduction, I’m both an airline captain and a licensed therapist. Working with people who have trouble with flying has been my specialty for twenty-eight years.
There is a great deal of misunderstanding about the cause of fear of flying. It is not caused by a bad flight; most people on a bad flight don’t develop fear of flying. Difficulty with flying is caused by insufficient ability to regulate feelings when facing uncertainty.
Research since the advent of the functional MRI just eight years ago has helps us understand how the brain works. We now recognize that the ability to regulate feelings is learned and that the part of the brain that does this regulation requires stimulation of the right kind during the first two years of life. The right kind of stimulation requires a caregiver who is empathically attuned to the infant and responds to the infants signals, rather than simply providing for the infant according to an agenda set by the caregiver.
If the child is afraid, the caregiver needs to tune into the child’s fear in a way the child really knows the caregiver feels the same way. Thus the child knows he or she is not alone.
Then, the magic happens; the caregiver then lets the child know that — though the child’s fear is 100% shared — the adult has an additional point of view, which is that it is not the end of the world; it will work out alright.
Many of us, obviously, didn’t get such optimal early development. Thus, when facing uncertainty, we control our anxiety by being in control of the situation, or by having a way to out of it.
That works fairly well on the ground — except for annoying those who regard us as control freaks. But when flying, there is uncertainty, of course. And, not being in control and not having a way out, there is no way to regulate the feelings.
Therapists try to help with CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy), but anxiety can develop so rapidly that CBT techniques cannot keep up with the anxiety build-up.
Hypnosis is pretty “hit or miss”. If it helps on one flight, it can fail to help on another flight.
Medications are not to be recommended — according to the World Health Organization — because when sedated, the passenger doesn’t move around enough to protect against DVT, Deep Vein Thrombosis. If a DVT clot forms, it is a serious and potentially life-threatening problem.
Also, use of medications — according to research — is only helpful in very mild cases of fear of flying. In more severe cases, medications make the flight worse!
I have tried to give a good understanding of the cause and cure of fear of flying in a video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zcx6ZsvKHSA&feature
Also, at
http://www.fearofflying.com/video_hs.shtml