A lifelong aviation enthusiast who joined&nbsp;AIN&nbsp;in 2007, Curt came to&nbsp;the publication&nbsp;from the broadcast industry where he was a national science and technology television reporter and producer. He writes on the FBO field, aviation finance, and sustainable aviation and occasionally contributes to&nbsp;AIN&nbsp;sister publication&nbsp;Business Jet Traveler. Curt was a member of the AINtv reporting staff that won the 2008 Aerospace Journalist of the Year award for Best Airshow Daily. That same year, he was a finalist for another AJOYA award. He earned an AJOYA for Best Business Aviation Submission in 2018 and was a finalist in that category in 2021. He received the National Air Transportation Association’s&nbsp; Aviation Journalist Award in 2012 and won a Pegasus Sapphire Business Aviation Award for outstanding journalism in 2021.
Before joining AIN, Curt worked with&nbsp;Consumer Reports’ television division, CRTV, and for several local television news staffs. An honors graduate of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, he earned a master’s degree in broadcast journalism from Boston University in 1995. Curt lives in New York State with his wife and two young sons.

Senior Editor

Curt Epstein

Air Ranking International, a Geneva-based consultancy firm, has just released its inaugural safety ranking of commercial airlines. While the European Union maintains a “blacklist” of airlines that it says do not meet minimum safety standards, the Air Ranking study looked at 33 of the EU-approved carriers to rate them according to 18 criteria, including: number of airplanes in the fleet, average aircraft age, airline turnover, airline profitability, internal maintenance, total miles flown, and number of passengers flown. Using mathematical calculations, researchers distilled the criteria to arrive at the ratings. 
American Airlines, Air France/KLM, United Airlines, Delta Airlines and Lufthansa headed the list of safest airlines, while Etihad, TAP, Ryanair, Air Berlin and Easy Jet rounded out the bottom. The study found that most accidents resulted from an accumulation of technical, human and external factors. “Highly experienced pilots can handle technical problems very well; conversely flights without technical problems can go very well with very inexperienced pilots,” said Jean-Pierre Otelli, the company’s chief technology officer. “However, the combination of technical problems and inexperienced pilots can be disastrous.” 
According to ARI, while the main priority of its rankings is to provide information to the general public regarding travel choices, more detailed information is available to industry professionals. The ARI ranking will be published annually in the second quarter of the following year.

New Study Ranks Safety of 33 EU-approved Airlines

Air Ranking International, a Geneva-based consultancy firm, has just released its inaugural safety ranking of commercial airlines.

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