These are the 20 safest airlines in the world

• AirlineRatings.com has released its annual list of the safest airlines in the world.
• The publication's editors selected the 20 safest carriers from a pool of 409 airlines.
• AirlineRatings did not name a "safest" airline. Just a list of the top 20.

Air travel is one of the safest forms of transportation around. And things are only getting better.

With that said, there are still some airlines that doing it better than others. Which is why AirlineRatings.com releases an annual list of the 20 safest carriers in the world.

"With travel , today, taking passengers to every corner of the globe, with hundreds of airlines to chose from and a wide variety of standards from one airline to another it is essential that passengers get the right information about the safety ratings as well as product," AirlineRatings.com editor-in-chief Geoffrey Thomas said in a statement.

The publication's safety rating system was developed with the help of the United Nations' International Civil Aviation Organization.

The 20 safest airlines are selected from a pool of 409 carriers around the world. To compile its list, the website's team of editors evaluated each airline based on its standing with international regulators, its fatality record over the past 10 years, the age of its fleet of planes, its result from an International Air Transport Association (IATA) safety audit, and whether its country of origin conforms with the International Civil Aviation Organization's eight-point safety parameter. All of the airlines on this list passed those tests with flying colors.

This year, the editors at AirlineRatings.com declined to select a single winner. Instead, they simply named the 20 safest airlines in the world in alphabetical order.

Here's a closer look at the 20 safest airlines in the world.