Originally Posted by
Himeno
It depends how they measure "safest". Just as there seem to be around a dozen ways to claim "largest/busiest airport".
While Qantas hasn't had any fatalities since 1951, and none with a jet aircraft, they have had a lot of incidents, some more serious then others (eg, QF1 BKK 1999 or QF31 SIN 2010).
Any statistician will tell you that crashes are sufficiently rare events that trying to pick one "safest" airline based on the lowest crash frequency is impossible. It's like determining which of you and I is more likely to win the lottery based on the fact that neither of us has done so yet.
Which town is more likely to get wiped out by a tsunami: Sydney or Alice Springs? Well, neither has ever done so, but Sydney is older than Alice Springs, so based on this logic you'd have to say Sydney is more tsunami-safe since zero over 226 years is implies a better tsunami safety record than zero over 136 years.