I think that is going a bit too fast for my liking. There are two elements worth considering.

1) The methodology is no different from previous years, yet BA has slipped in the rankings. That, in and by itself, is worth taking seriously;

2) Whilst all methodologies have their limits, I do not find that one shocking. In particular, the reference to "the number of incidents… which were not life-threatening but there were a lot of them compared to other airlines of similar size” also should not be dismissed too quickly in my view.

The reference to adverse conditions, reporting standards etc are also not very convincing to me, if airlines like EI, VS, SK, and AY are rated a lot higher than BA in the rankings. I can buy that there may be different "traditions" in the Middle East, but the suggestion that reporting standards would be lax in Scandinavia, Switzerland, Ireland, or Finland is not intuitively convincing to me, and obviously VS is subject to the exact same as BA.