Fear of flying is one of the most widespread phobias in the world. But to reassure those who are assailed by an irrational anxiety at the mere thought of getting on a plane, comes a study from MIT – Massachusetts Institute of Technology, published in the Journal of Air Transport Management.
The study shows not only that the airplane is statistically the safest means of transport in absolute terms, but also that safety in the skies has progressively increased over the last 50 years. In practice, flights today are approximately 39 times safer than those of half a century ago. As a result, the risk of death associated with commercial flights has drastically decreased in recent decades and in the period 2018-2022 was equal to 1 in 13.7 million passengers embarked.
Encouraging data on air safety
This represents a marked improvement over the period 2008-2017, when the risk was 1 in 7.9 million, and a dramatic leap over the years 1968-1977, when the risk was 1 in 350,000 embarkations. positive trend that has continued for over fifty yearswith an estimated annual improvement of around 7% and a risk reduction that halves every decade.
Arnold Barnett, a professor at MIT and co-author of the study, compares these advances to “Moore’s Law”according to which the computing power of microchips would double approximately every 18 months. Similarly, the safety of commercial flights appears to be constantly improving, with a drastic reduction in mortality risk every decade. “We have a kind of airline version of Moore’s Law,” Barnett notes, noting the importance of these improvements in making air travel increasingly safe for passengers around the world.
The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic
The study also analyzed the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on aviation safety, separating this aspect from the overall long-term safety trend. Barnett and his team estimated that between June 2020 and February 2021, before the widespread use of vaccines, there were approximately 1,200 deaths in the United States associated with the contagion from Covid-19 that occurred on passenger aircraft.
On a global scale, between March 2020 and December 2022, it is estimated that approximately 4,760 deaths were linked to the transmission of the virus during flights. These data, however, represent an exceptional phase, and do not affect the general improvement in air safety observed in recent decades.
Constant improvements over time
The researchers analyzed the risks associated with commercial flights based on data from the Flight Safety Foundationby the World Bank and the International Air Transport Association. While there are several metrics to assess these risks, Barnett believes that the number of deaths per flight is the most “defensible” and understandable statistic.
This data actually answers the simple question: what are the chances of dying if you have a boarding pass? According to Barnett’s updated estimates, safety has improved steadily over time, with a significant drop in deaths on boardwhich today is, in fact, equal to 1 in every 13.7 million passengers.
Global disparity
Despite global progress, there are still disparities in aviation safety between different regions of the world. The study divides countries into three groups, based on their safety standards. The states of the first group, including the United States, the European Union, Japan, United Kingdom Australia, Canada and China showed the best results, with a risk of death from embarkation of approximately 1 in 80 million over the period 2018-2022.
In the second group, which includes countries such as Brazil, India, Malaysia, Mexico, South Korea, the Philippines, Thailand, Türkiye and South Africa, the risk is similar, but with some variations. The third group, which includes the rest of the world, recorded 36.5 times more deaths per embarkation than the countries in the first group.
The researchers note that despite significant progress, there is a need to continue work to further improve flight safety commercial, especially in the third group countries. Although these have shown improvements over time, the gap with the most aviation safety-conscious nations is still very wide.