What are the world's safest airlines?

(CNN)Aviation website AirlineRatings.com has just released its annual list of the world's 10 safest airlines.

Once again, Australian airline Qantas grabs the top spot.

"Qantas continues to lead the industry with safety innovations and its fleet is now the youngest -- 7.9 years -- it has been since the airline was privatized in 1995," AirlineRatings.com editor Geoffrey Thomas tells CNN.

He says the airline is an industry benchmark for best practice and has taken the lead in virtually every major advancement in airline safety over the past 60 years.

Rounding out the rest of the top 10 in alphabetical order are: Air New Zealand, British Airways, Cathay Pacific Airways, Emirates, Etihad Airways, EVA Air, Finnair, Lufthansa and Singapore Airlines.
 

"Our top 10 safest airlines are always at the forefront of safety innovation and launching new planes," says Thomas.

AirlineRatings.com's rating system takes into account audits from aviation's governing bodies and lead associations as well as government audits and the airlines' fatality records.

It also examines airlines' operational histories, incident records and operational excellence.

Of the the 449 airlines it monitors, 149 have the top seven-star safety ranking.

This year, the site also included a list of the top 10 safest low cost airlines for 2015.

These are, in alphabetical order: Aer Lingus (Ireland), Alaska Airlines (U.S), Icelandair (Iceland), Jetblue (U.S.), Jetstar (Australia), Kulula.com (South Africa), Monarch Airlines (UK), Thomas Cook (UK), TUIfly (Germany) and WestJet (Canada).

"Unlike a number of low cost carriers these airlines have all passed the stringent International Air Transport Association Operational Safety Audit audit and have excellent safety records," says Thomas.

"Low cost does not mean low safety."