Travellers can find tools to weigh safety of foreign airlines

International air travel has become remarkably safe in recent years, with deadly accidents like last month's Lion Air crash in Indonesia becoming more rare. Statistics aside, the accident is making travellers wary of flying in some countries or on certain foreign airlines. The safety of Indonesia's airlines had been questioned long before the Lion Air accident. "There has been a lot more trepidation about flying smaller airlines that Americans have never heard of" since the Oct. 29 Lion Air crash, said Blake Fleetwood, president of Cook Travel in New York. "It is pushing people to the bigger airlines. People are scared." Before plunking down big money to book international flights, nervous flyers can tap into resources that can provide red-flag warnings if there are doubts about a carrier's safety. The FAA determines whether countries meet international safety standards set by the UN aviation agency. Five currently do not — Thailand, Bangladesh, Ghana, Curacao and Sint Maarten. Airlines from those countries can't launch new flights to the US. Indonesia got off the blacklist in 2016. Europe bans 120 airlines from its skies. Most are smaller carriers from developing countries in Africa and parts of Asia. Lion Air was banned for nearly a decade until 2016; other blackballed Indonesian carriers only got off the list in June. Aviation Safety Network has an accident database that can be searched by airline or country. Websites like AirlineRatings.com rank carriers based on crash records and other data. <br/>