ANA was established in 1952 and primarily operates from Tokyo Haneda and Tokyo Narita, as well as other major Japanese airports like Osaka Itami and Fukuoka. ANA is consistently rated as a safe airline to fly with.
The airline is IATA IOSA certified and its safety regulator is one of the world’s leading civil aviation safety regulators, meaning that ANA aircraft and crew licensing standards and airline safety protocols are among the best monitored and regulated in the world. Fatal crashes involving ANA aircraft are very rare.
The last one occurred over 50 years ago and since then ANA has suffered only a small number of serious aircraft incidents.
ANA Safety Policy
ANA has established a Safety Promotion Plan to foster a strong safety culture and deliver a comprehensive safety training programme for all ANA employees. ANA’s safety initiatives are underpinned by a Safety Management System (SMS) that provides a systematic framework for safety management and ensures safety-related information is shared across the whole company.
Similar to JAL, ANA has established a safety training centre (‘The Safety Education Centre’) that serves as a facility for ANA to train its staff in safety matters whilst also acting as a reminder of the gravity and impact of past tragedies.
ANA Operates a Modern Fleet
If you tend to equate safety with an airline’s aircraft feet age (not that you really should), then let’s take a look at the ANA fleet and the average age of each aircraft type in its fleet.
ANA has a large existing fleet of Boeing and Airbus aircraft and continues to renew its fleet with 19 unfulfilled orders each for the Boeing 777X and 787. According to Airfleets.net the overall average weighted age of the active main ANA fleet (excluding ANA Wings) is 9.6 years. The average ANA aircraft ages by aircraft type are shown in the table below.
We can see that there is quite a range of ages across the different aircraft types. ANA’s 767s are its oldest aircraft, with an average of almost 19 years. These aircraft were delivered between 2002 and 2011. The youngest aircraft type in the ANA fleet is the A321 with an average age of 4.0 years. These aircraft were delivered between 2016 and 2021.
| Aircraft | Active Airframes | Average Age/ years |
| A320 | 11 | 4.9 |
| A321 | 26 | 4.0 |
| A380 | 2 | 4.7 |
| 737NG | 39 | 10.5 |
| 767 | 24 | 18.7 |
| 777 | 31 | 12.5 |
| 787 | 79 | 7.8 |
| Total | 212 | 9.6 |
An average fleet age of around 10 years is quite typical for a major international airline and is similar to many other major airlines. For example, Lufthansa’s average fleet age is 10.5 years, United Airlines’ is 16.5 years, KLM’s is 10.9 years, Air France’s is 14.3 years, and British Airways’ is 12.9 years, and JAL’s is 10.9 years.
ANA Wings (an ANA subsidiary) operates a fleet of Dash8 aircraft, which, according to airfleets.net has an average aircraft age of 14.5 years.
ANA Is IOSA-Certified and a Member of the Star Alliance
Given how safe air travel is in general, airline safety rankings are of limited practical use. That said, they provide a good overview of why any given airline is safe to fly with. One such rating is provided by AirlineRatings.com. In this rating, ANA has the highest possible, seven-star safety rating which means that:
- Accidents and incidents: ANA has not suffered any fatal accidents within the last 10 years (3 stars), and has not suffered numerous safety-related incidents (2 stars).
- Audits and bans: ANA is IOSA (IATA Operational Safety Audit) certified (1 star). This audit is the benchmark for global safety management in airlines. The audit is optional and assesses whether an airline has the necessary systems and processes in place to operate safely. Airlines are evaluated every two years. In addition, ANA is not blacklisted in the European Union or the United States (1 star).
ANA is regulated by The Japan Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (Civil Aviation Bureau). Japan’s ICAO Safety Audit results are very good with effective implementation in the range of 80-95% for the eight areas audited, well above the global average for all eight audit areas. The IATA audit assesses a nation’s approach to airline safety oversight and regulation.
The airline is a member of the Star Alliance, one of the world’s three major airline alliances. Whilst membership in a major airline alliance is not a safety certification per se, it’s still a significant stamp of approval for the airline’s approach to safety and operations. Other Star Alliance member airlines include Air Canada, Air New Zealand, Lufthansa, Singapore Airlines, Swiss, and United Airlines.
ANA was positioned 11th in the Asia Pacific/Africa region in a 2022 airline safety ranking study conducted by the Hamburg-based Jet Airliner Crash Data Evaluation Centre (JACDEC). JACDEC assesses the world’s largest airlines as measured by their revenue passenger performance (RPKs), and the ranking is based on a wide variety of factors including:
- Fleet age
- Accident history since 1992
- International safety audits and government aviation safety oversight level
- Country risk factors like terrain and weather
- Route profile – i.e. the proportion of short-haul flights given that take-offs and landings are the riskiest portions of flights
The ANA assessed risk factor for 2022 was 88.49, on par with other major international airlines such as British Airways, JAL, and Lufthansa. Overall, across the world, the top-ranked airline was Emirates with a score of 95.05. The ANA score reflects the local terrain and weather conditions in Japan and its relatively high proportion of short-haul flights.
ANA Incidents and Accidents
Similar to many large airlines that have had a long operational history and that operate a large fleet, ANA aircraft have been involved in a number of incidents. Many of these were unavoidable natural events such as unexpected turbulence and lightning strikes.
During the 1960s and 1970s, ANA suffered a number of fatal crashes. ANA’s worst accident occurred in July 1971 when a 727 was involved in a mid-air collision with a military jet. The 727 crashed, killing all 168 people on board. Since this tragedy, ANA has not suffered any fatal crashes; the only fatal incident after 1971 was a hijack in July 1999 where the captain was killed by the hijacker. Passengers and crew subdued the hijacker and there were no other deaths.
ANA reports accidents and serious incidents on its website from 2010 onwards. An analysis of this information shows that ANA aircraft have been involved in a total of 10 accidents and 17 serious incidents from 2010 onwards; an average of 2 per year. This may appear high, but delving into this data shows that many of these incidents and accidents were beyond ANA’s control, and none of these involved fatalities, with only a small number resulting in injuries.
The 27 accidents and serious incidents were as follows:
- Turbulence: 5
- Runway incursion: 5
- Engine noise/vibration: 4
- Rapid descent: 2
- Hard landing: 2
- Runway overrun: 2
- Cabin smoke/aroma: 1
- Lightning strike: 1
- Decrease in cabin pressure: 1
- Sudden deceleration during taxiing: 1
- Crew illness: 1
- Aircraft collision with ground support vehicle: 1
- Emergency landing: 1
Summary: Is Flying with ANA Safe?
All in all, yes, flying with ANA is safe.
The airline had no fatal crashes since 1971 and other very serious incidents have been rare. In addition, ANA operates with safety protocols and procedures that are endorsed by its IOSA certification which is the benchmark for global safety management in airlines.
