It has never been safer to fly on commercial airlines, according to a new study that tracks the continued decrease in passenger fatalities around the globe.

The study finds that between 2008 and 2017, airline passenger fatalities fell significantly compared to the previous decade, as measured per individual passenger boardings — essentially the aggregate number of passengers. Globally, that rate is now one death per 7.9 million passenger boardings, compared to one death per 2.7 million boardings during the period 1998-2007, and one death per 1.3 million boardings during 1988-1997.

Going back further, the commercial airline fatality risk was one death per 750,000 boardings during 1978-1987, and one death per 350,000 boardings during 1968-1977.

«The worldwide risk of being killed had been dropping by a factor of two every decade,» says Arnold Barnett, an MIT scholar who has published a new paper summarizing the study’s results. «Not only has that continued in the last decade, the [latest] improvement is closer to a factor of three. The pace of improvement has not slackened at all even as flying has gotten ever safer and further gains become harder to achieve. That is really quite impressive and is important for people to bear in mind.»

The paper, «Aviation Safety: A Whole New World?» was published online this month in Transportation Science. Barnett is the sole author.

The new research also reveals that there is discernible regional variation in airline safety around the world. The study finds that the nations housing the lowest-risk airlines are the U.S., the members of the European Union, China, Japan, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Israel. The aggregate fatality risk among those nations was one death per 33.1 million passenger boardings during 2008-2017.

Story Source: Materials provided by Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Original written by Peter Dizikes. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.