An Air New Zealand Plane Flies Over Mount Victoria
IN PHOTO: An Air New Zealand plane flies over houses in Mount Victoria as it approaches Wellington airport, October 7, 2011. Reuters/Marcos Brindicci

Air New Zealand has been recognised as one of the world's safest airlines for passengers. AirlineRatings.com has recently released its list with Qantas taking the spot for the airline with no fatalities on record.

The airline rating website said that Qantas has achieved several records in safety operations in its 94 years in the business. The company was lauded for being the world's most experienced airline.

The list of world's safest airlines was based on the site's evaluation of the airline company's history, incident records and operational excellence. It also consults aviation watchdogs like the FAA and the ICAO to complete its top 10 safest airlines.

The site reported there was no doubt that 2014 was a "bad year" for airline safety with 21 fatal accidents with 986 deaths. AirlineRatings described the high number of deaths as "sickening." However, the world's airlines carried a record-high of 3.3 billion passengers on 27 million flights.

According to the report, the high number of deaths was recorded despite a record low number of accidents for the year, which is equivalent to one for every 1.3 million flights. AirlineRatings said the MH370 and MH17 crashes were "unprecedented" in modern times. The Malaysian Airlines tragedies caused 537 deaths.

Qantas was praised for being a leader in the real-time monitoring of engines using satellite technology. The communications system enables the airline to detect problems before they escalate or turn into a major safety issue. The airline was also praised for its avionics system that links communication between the pilot and air traffic controller.

Aside from Qantas and Air New Zealand, other airlines included in the top 10 were British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Emirates, Etihad Airways, EVA Air, Finnair, Lufthansa and Singapore Airlines.

Meanwhile, Stuff.co reported that Air New Zealand's alliance with Singapore Airlines is taking off with fares from Auckland to Singapore, Southeast Asia and Europe expected to go down. Air New Zealand has not flown to Singapore for eight years after closing the route in 2006 following heavy losses. The new alliance is expected to boost the capacity of the airlines' Auckland/Singapore route by 30 percent.