The World's 10 Most Reliable Airlines

An unexpected flight delay or cancellation can ruin your trip before it even begins. So which airlines are the best at not letting passengers down? U.K.-based Get Going Travel Insurance recently cross-referenced data from airlineratings.com, flightstats.com, flightaware.com, and caa.co.uk for as many as 50 airlines in November 2018 to determine which travelers can put their trust into ahead of the upcoming hectic holiday travel period.

Finnair checks in at number 10 on the list with a flight delay percentage of 14.14 percent and a cancellation rate of only 1.07 percent. Finland's flag carrier also earned a 10 out of 10 for safety but only six out of 10 for customer satisfaction.

Financial issues prompted the suspension of Jet Airways flights this past April and it turned in a customer rating of just five out of 10. Nonetheless, the currently defunct Indian carrier finds itself in the top 10 after canceling only 0.25 percent of its flights last fall.

Japanese carrier All Nippon Airways earned the highest customer rating of any airline in the top 10, receiving an eight out of 10 on the satisfaction scale. ANA also earned a perfect score for safety. What's more, only one other carrier in the top 10 fared better in terms of average delay waiting time (32.9 minutes).

Qatar Airways excelled in terms of both cancellation rate (0.45 percent) and safety (10 out of 10). However, the airline's November 2018 delay rate of 16.25 percent and average wait time of 39.2 minutes were both the two worst marks of any carrier Get Going analyzed to make the top 10.

The world's most family-friendly airline, according to an analysis by the folks at PlayLikeMum, is also extremely dependable. Emirates canceled just 0.23 percent of its flights last November and experienced delays only 15.17 percent of the time, resulting in an average wait time of roughly 37 minutes.

Brazil's Azul canceled fewer than 1.2 percent of its flights last November and experienced delays on roughly one out of every 10 flights, reporting the second-best delay rate of any airline to make this year's top 10.

Dutch carrier KLM nearly mirrored Azul in terms of safety, customer satisfaction, delay and cancellation rates but it's average waiting time during a delay was more than three minutes shorter than its Brazilian counterpart.

IndiGo boasts the lowest percentage of canceled flights of any airline in the top 10 at 0.07 percent. Still, it's one of only two airlines in the top 10 to fail to achieve a 10 out of 10 for safety and had the highest rate of flight delays (14.7 percent) among airlines in the top five.

Also representing KLM in the top five is the company's regional airline subsidiary. KLM Cityhopper's 9.6 percent rate of flight delays is the best of any carrier to crack the top 10 most reliable.

Japan's flag carrier comes out on top in terms of reliability with a cancellation rate of just over 1 percent and the shortest average delay waiting time of any airline in the top 10 at just 31.7 minutes during the period Get Going analyzed.