[HN Gopher] Kayak's new flight filter allows you to exclude airc...
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       Kayak's new flight filter allows you to exclude aircraft models
        
       Author : Eisenstein
       Score  : 491 points
       Date   : 2024-01-22 07:41 UTC (15 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.reddit.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.reddit.com)
        
       | lordofgibbons wrote:
       | I love the idea, but as far as I know, there's nothing stopping
       | an airline from changing the plane "last minute" right before the
       | flight. Then you have to make a decision at the gate whether you
       | want to turn around a go back home (or hotel) after spending
       | hours getting to the airport, going through security, and waiting
       | at the gate.
        
         | rob74 wrote:
         | True - at least most "737-only" low-cost airlines (Southwest,
         | Ryanair, ...) use the older 737 models and the MAX (which
         | Ryanair has rechristened to "737-8200" because of... reasons)
         | interchangeably AFAIK.
        
           | chx wrote:
           | The 8200 is a higher density version of the 8 and it comes
           | with an extra pair of exits because of this.
        
             | rob74 wrote:
             | Yes, but according to Wikipedia, Boeing refers (or
             | referred) to it as "737 MAX 200", so the suspicion that
             | Ryanair insisted on renaming it to get rid of the tainted
             | MAX moniker is warranted...
        
               | chx wrote:
               | According to
               | https://www.easa.europa.eu/en/downloads/7297/en the type
               | is called 737-8200 and belongs to the Max group.
               | 
               | According to https://www.faa.gov/sites/faa.gov/files/FSBR
               | _B737_Rev_19_Dra...
               | 
               | > In January 2021, the FSB conducted an analysis of the
               | changes introduced for the 737-8200. The analysis
               | identified that the 737-8200 is functionally equivalent
               | to the 737-8. The 737-8200 is incorporated into the MAX
               | series aircraft group in paragraph 8.1 and in Appendix 2,
               | Master Differences Requirements (MDR) Table.
               | 
               | Both the EASA and the FAA calls it 737-8200. Neither did
               | it to remove the MAX moniker from it.
        
           | Armisael16 wrote:
           | Southwest has dozens of Max 8s, for what it's worth:
           | https://www.planespotters.net/airline/Southwest-Airlines
           | 
           | I booked a flight with them last night, and it's scheduled to
           | fly on one.
        
         | mihaaly wrote:
         | True for individual flights but not on the mass scale. For the
         | masses this will still be useful. And a hit to MAX 8 and other
         | Boeing 737 models in the short and medium run. The aversion
         | will die out eventually for those who can weather the storm
         | (and make some more money by those having other type of
         | planes).
        
         | Arnt wrote:
         | Let me try a sanity check. I fly a lot for work, have eleven
         | tickets booked now. There's nothing stopping the airline in one
         | of those eleven cases.
         | 
         | For five flights, the airline would have a problem swapping out
         | the planes because there's likely only one plane on hand at
         | that airport at that time. For three, I think the population of
         | the country would be quick to disapprove if the airline did it
         | with any frequency. For two, the airline can't very well swap
         | because it's that airline's biggest aircraft and the route is
         | usually nearly full.
        
           | marcus0x62 wrote:
           | I used to fly a lot for work. I think I encountered
           | "equipment change"[0] maybe once a month. The idea that an
           | airline would do it as some sort of ploy to attract
           | passengers afraid of a particular airframe seems...unlikely.
           | 
           | 0 - the airline term of art for this.
        
             | Hamuko wrote:
             | I think the idea that passengers would be afraid of a
             | particular airframe is a relatively new one, so I'm not
             | sure how useful past data is here.
        
               | Arnt wrote:
               | It happened to the 1970 MAX 8, which was grounded
               | permanently before Kayak could filter it, but "sales
               | never fully recovered" as Wikipedia says.
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Havilland_Comet
        
               | marcus0x62 wrote:
               | Hard disagree.
               | 
               | First, when I was flying regularly, it was during the
               | height of the original 737 Max scare, which also occurred
               | within a few years of the CFM56 fan blade problems and
               | the 737NG pickle fork fatigue cracking problem. It was a
               | _rough_ couple of years for the 737 family, yet I didn't
               | notice any serious uptick in equipment changes, and I was
               | flying on airlines with a bunch of 737s in their fleets.
               | 
               | Second, the idea of some conspiracy involving falsely
               | advertising which airframe an airline intends to use for
               | a flight, which would involve submitting false flight
               | plans and publishing false flight data, is patently
               | absurd to anyone who has been exposed even as an end-user
               | to the tech stack of the airlines, such as it is.
               | 
               | Between getting licensed employees to lie to the
               | government and the airlines antiquated software, I don't
               | believe they could do what is being suggested, even if
               | they wanted to.
        
               | voakbasda wrote:
               | Look up the history of the DC-10. People have been afraid
               | of specific airframes for many decades.
        
               | pirate787 wrote:
               | I'm old enough to remember this, can confirm that the
               | general public was afraid of the DC 10- the entire model
               | was banned for a time when the FAA pulled its
               | certificate. We're one deadly US crash from the end of
               | the MAX and from a Boeing bankruptcy.
               | 
               | https://www.faa.gov/sites/faa.gov/files/2022-11/AvWeek%20
               | -%2...
        
           | _heimdall wrote:
           | My wife once got bumped off the last flight out of DC one
           | night because the airline decided to switch to a smaller
           | plane. There was no mechanical or logistical reason given.
           | 
           | Hopefully its rare but it can and does happen.
        
             | szundi wrote:
             | Obviously there were aforementioned reasons.
        
               | playingalong wrote:
               | For technical reasons.
        
               | _heimdall wrote:
               | I'm sure the airline had a reason, though at a minimum it
               | wasn't shared with the passengers. In all likelihood that
               | means it wasn't a mechanical issue as those are always
               | shared in my experience.
               | 
               | My best guess was that, given it was the last flight of
               | the day, the airline decided they needed to move planes
               | around differently for the next morning.
        
               | furyofantares wrote:
               | I'm not sure what you're saying, as you using
               | "aforementioned" to mean "not mentioned" rather than
               | "previously mentioned"?
        
           | niklasrde wrote:
           | "the population of the country would be quick to disapprove"
           | - now you've got me curious. Who would be disapproving? I
           | doubt US population would care much for a Boeing Swapout, or
           | Europe for an Airbus one. Embraer is from Brazil, but I don't
           | think LATAM even has any. Does the Eastern world care more?
           | 
           | Or is it a model thing? Noise/pollution thing? Are you flying
           | to some small island nation with special planes?
        
             | BoxFour wrote:
             | > Or is it a model thing?
             | 
             | Yes, this is very likely about avoiding the max 8.
        
               | mkl wrote:
               | 737 Max in general [1], but especially recently the Max 9
               | [2].
               | 
               | [1]
               | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737_MAX_groundings
               | 
               | [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737_MAX#Alaska_A
               | irlines...
        
             | Arnt wrote:
             | Germans would.
             | 
             | It's difficult to explain, you have to live here a while
             | and experience it. Some things are tolerated, some things
             | NOT. Occasionally flying other aircraft than planned? OK.
             | Skewing the occasional swaps, deceptively using an aircraft
             | type that the general public distrusts? NOT OK. That would
             | turn niche distrust of an aircraft type into wide distrust
             | of the airline.
        
           | logifail wrote:
           | > For five flights, the airline would have a problem swapping
           | out the planes because there's likely only one plane on hand
           | at that airport at that time.
           | 
           | This is disingenuous at best.
           | 
           | Assuming you're talking about flights where an aircraft
           | operates an outbound flight from its base to airport XXX and
           | then an inbound flight back "home" again.
           | 
           |  _If_ the airline decides to swap on outbound (base-XXX)
           | flight, you 'll get exactly that aircraft on the inbound
           | (XXX-base) flight. It won't be completely last minute,
           | because as soon as the outbound flight is swapped you know
           | you'll be flying that aircraft on the inbound leg, but still,
           | unless you change your flight to another, you'll be flying
           | the swapped aircraft nevertheless. You just get a few more
           | hours' notice.
           | 
           | FWIW, exactly this happened to my wife on Friday (Lufthansa
           | transatlantic flight scheduled as A350, operated by an A340
           | due to disruption in Germany earlier last week due to
           | freezing rain). For her that was the second late aircraft
           | swap of 4 flights in the last 14 days.
        
             | Arnt wrote:
             | True. Sorry. GP wrote "last minute", I suppose I was a
             | little too narrowminded. I should have considered a swap at
             | the last hub as well.
        
           | ghaff wrote:
           | I used to fly a lot and it's not common in my experience
           | though it does happen. Far more common is a flight is
           | canceled or delayed and you have to take a different flight,
           | possibly even on a different airline.
           | 
           | If someone's objective is to reduce their likelihood of
           | flying a particular airframe, these tools can probably help
           | albeit at the possible cost of higher prices or less
           | convenient schedules.
           | 
           | But there are no ironclad guarantees if someone feels _that_
           | strongly.
        
           | barbazoo wrote:
           | Off topic but because you seem to be a frequent flyer: Have
           | you come across a program that sustainably offsets emissions
           | caused by one's air travel? I did the calculation the other
           | day and a single flight to Hawaii caused as much CO2e as my
           | entire household for a year (electricity, LNG, gas). I'm
           | reducing flying to a minimum but I wonder if there's an
           | actual measurable thing I could do to reduce the damage.
        
         | HenryBemis wrote:
         | From own experience, the latest (in the day) a flight is
         | (especially the short 2-3h flights within EU) the more chances
         | is you will be delayed (if every fight is delayed by 30mins, by
         | the end of the day multiple those 30mins x 4 or 5 or 6).
         | 
         | When a company may see that "oops we are gonna be paying $$$$
         | for the delays" they will have no fear to bring in another
         | plane (not the one you booked).
         | 
         | The same applies of course for any planes that are damaged,
         | etc.
         | 
         | I tried asking ChatGPT but couldn't give me an answer of the
         | frequency "how often to air companies swap the planes" (I tried
         | with various choices of words) and it couldn't give me a
         | percentage or any other metric.
        
         | madeofpalk wrote:
         | It's not that there's 'nothing stopping' the airline, it's that
         | under the normal operation of an airline, planes are moved
         | around and rescheduled _all the time_ , up just hours (or
         | sooner!) before the flight.
         | 
         | I would guess something like 0% of assigned _tail numbers_ (not
         | plane model) remain the same a week before booking. Airlines
         | that fly multiple models on the same route would be harder to
         | reassign, but days before the flight if it hasn 't sold out,
         | it's still very possible they'll get moved around.
         | 
         | The safest way to not fly a particular model of plane is to not
         | fly with airlines that open them.
        
         | dacryn wrote:
         | This happens very rarely, and is usually of the same family.
         | You replace an Airbus 320 with another airbus, not a boeing.
         | Simply because those airlines don't have both on them in their
         | portfolio.
         | 
         | Now if its specifically to avoid a certain type of Boeing 737
         | max when the airline already flies boeing, yeah thay might
         | happen indeed.
         | 
         | The only cases of switching families is long haul, like
         | Emirates replaced an Airbus a380 with a 777 once on a trip I
         | took. Still caused massive issues because the boeing is
         | smaller, so they don't like doing this.
        
           | jojobas wrote:
           | Plenty of airlines have both A320 and B737 and/or a mix of
           | NG/MAX. Replacing one with another will almost always have a
           | different seat arrangement, necessitating mucking around with
           | pre-allocated seats, and is avoided whenever practical.
        
             | taneliv wrote:
             | How often the pilots have certification (or whatever it is
             | called) to fly the swapped in aircraft? Maybe the usually
             | do, or perhaps it is typical to swap the crew as well?
        
               | mattmaroon wrote:
               | You'd generally be swapping the crew as well which is
               | another reason this doesn't happen a lot.
        
               | throw0101d wrote:
               | > _certification_
               | 
               | * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_rating
        
               | rangestransform wrote:
               | well the whole point of MCAS was to allow pilots to fly
               | the 737MAX without needing another type rating
        
               | LeifCarrotson wrote:
               | I don't think anyone's suggesting that an airline would
               | misrepresent all their flights as being on A320s that
               | don't exist and then claim to swap for mechanical issues
               | at the gate to 737s that do. And they could do this on
               | every single ticket. (Is that what people are
               | suggesting?)
               | 
               | They're complaining that they could buy a ticket out of
               | one airport on an A320, that plane could get delayed, and
               | the airline could swap in a 737 that was waiting for
               | another route. Passengers on the other route would then
               | get the Airbus that they hadn't specifically filtered
               | for. That might happen on one in 50 or one in 100
               | flights.
        
         | Waterluvian wrote:
         | It _can_ happen but is it a real problem or just a hypothetical
         | one?
        
           | ghaff wrote:
           | It does happen and there are a variety of other reasons why
           | you can end up on a different plane than you intended. You
           | can improve your odds of avoiding specific airframe(s) by not
           | booking them but you mostly can't guarantee it.
           | 
           | (Sort of. If you want to be sure to avoid regional jets on
           | trans-oceanic flights you're pretty safe.)
        
         | vasco wrote:
         | Congratulations, you've found a new insurance niche.
        
         | rsynnott wrote:
         | Many airlines, in practice, only fly a particular type or type
         | of planes on a particular route.
        
         | instagib wrote:
         | Everyone responding saying it doesn't happen is wrong. It may
         | not happen often to them. I have flown 500,000 miles.
         | 
         | I have family and friends in the industry who pilot, work
         | ground ops, maintenance, and are flight attendants. At an
         | airline with over 300 departures per day things go wrong, crews
         | time out, aircraft have issues on landing that somehow get
         | ignored until morning, and many more examples then planes get
         | swapped.
         | 
         | They generally have very few planes on standby because it's
         | like flying them empty, it's an inefficient use of money. It
         | turns into wack a mole quickly and one flight steals a plane,
         | gate, or crew from another until none are left.
        
           | RajT88 wrote:
           | Yeah, I mean, sometimes they find stuff wrong with the plane
           | they can't fix.
           | 
           | I've definitely swapped planes a few times after sitting in
           | the plane for a while.
        
           | trbleclef wrote:
           | It absolutely happens, I had a WN flight on a MAX 8 last week
           | that was changed to a 737-800 the day before.
        
           | marcosdumay wrote:
           | Aviation authorities would get upset if some airline has a
           | routine of doing this. This is absolutely something they keep
           | a track of.
           | 
           | But yes, there's nothing stopping them from doing it for you
           | flight. Or even from "permanently" doing it and undoing a day
           | later.
        
             | dcow wrote:
             | Why would authorities get upset?
        
               | marcosdumay wrote:
               | TBH, because they track it.
               | 
               | They would have some good reasoning, because they don't
               | make a fuss about exchanging equivalent planes, but if
               | it's happening all the time, the planes must not be
               | equivalent. But the actual reason is that somebody is
               | always looking, and that somebody would get wary.
        
             | pavon wrote:
             | Playing it safe by delaying a flight to swap out planes
             | looks good to aviation authorities.
        
           | _puk wrote:
           | Especially in Europe, where any delay over 3 hours results in
           | a right to compensation [0]. It's quite usual to swap a
           | technical fault out so then have time to fix it.
           | 
           | Last few flights the poor staff have come from one airport
           | and returned to another country..
           | 
           | 0: https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/travel/passenger-
           | right...
        
           | dylan604 wrote:
           | I've personally been on a flight that was delayed because of
           | an issue with a plane where the airline was waiting for a
           | different plane to arrive. I don't know if it was a different
           | model or not, but it was definitely a different plane.
           | 
           | As hearsay, I've had a friend on a flight where they made
           | everyone deboard the plane because of an issue so they could
           | get on a different plane. After waiting for that plane to
           | arrive and boarding it, they decide there's an issue with
           | that plane too. Then, after all of that hassle and a long
           | delay, they claim the original plane has been fixed and re-
           | boarded that plane.
           | 
           | Lots of things can happen
        
             | jazzyjackson wrote:
             | I enjoyed the Disney+ series "Dubai International" way more
             | than I expected partly because it illuminated all kinds of
             | weird issues that pop up and the individuals whose
             | responsibility it is to make a go-no-go call.
             | 
             | Baggage was loaded but the passenger isn't at the gate,
             | have to unload all the baggage.
             | 
             | Plane that was supposed to be unloaded by now has a pallet
             | that's jammed and needs to be hit with a sledge hammer for
             | 20 minutes.
             | 
             | Hydraulics sprung a leak, maybe it's a nut that needs to be
             | tightened maybe the whole thing needs to be taken out of
             | service.
             | 
             | etc etc
        
         | whywhywhywhy wrote:
         | Also if enough people start doing this wouldn't the airlines
         | just stop reporting what the plane is.
        
         | cjrp wrote:
         | Or even earlier than at the gate. If you book a flight for 6
         | months time, there's nothing stoping them changing the
         | allocated aircraft in 3 months.
        
         | nerdjon wrote:
         | Solution: Fly an airline that doesn't use Boeing at all. Like
         | JetBlue.
         | 
         | I would say there is basically zero chance that you would be
         | switched to a Boeing last minute with JetBlue.
        
           | qazxcvbnmlp wrote:
           | Until there's a mechanical issue last minute and they put you
           | on another airline to get you a seat home.
        
       | golergka wrote:
       | How long until airlines start to advertise that they don't have
       | 737 MAX in their fleets? Or no Boeing planes at all?
        
         | rob74 wrote:
         | I don't think airlines will do that, because having at least
         | two (more would be of course better) competing manufacturers in
         | the market is better for them, so they have to hope that Boeing
         | survives even if they don't currently use their planes...
        
           | lostlogin wrote:
           | If there is a way to be more profitable this year, with a
           | potential issue several years away, what percentage of
           | companies would take that chance?
           | 
           | Airlines take the quick money every time as far as I can
           | tell.
        
           | reacharavindh wrote:
           | It is like Samsung shitposting on Apple about removing the
           | 3.5 mm audio port, enjoy the marketing stunts, and then
           | remove it themselves a coupl eof years later. All companies
           | and their PR teams know the memory retention of their
           | audience is tiny. I'm honestly surprised the airlines that
           | dont have Boeing 737 in their fleet are not taking this
           | opportunity to make a splash yet.
        
         | VBprogrammer wrote:
         | The recent 737 Max issue doesn't seem particularly aircraft
         | specific. If the QA and culture have gotten that bad then it
         | could happen to 787 just as easily.
         | 
         | I doubt however this will ever move the needle in terms of
         | passenger numbers. Even for those people who are aware of the
         | issues, a tiny minority of them would pay more to avoid a
         | particular aircraft model.
        
           | lostlogin wrote:
           | > I doubt however this will ever move the needle in terms of
           | passenger numbers.
           | 
           | Maybe, but these things have a momentum and it's very clear
           | things are moving in an uncomfortable direction for Boeing.
        
           | viraptor wrote:
           | Yup, some flights are going to be extremely unlikely to
           | change and are basically always 100% booked. QF10 London-
           | Perth (Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner) will not be affected at all
           | by a non-trivial percentage of people refusing to fly it.
           | There's not enough supply on those routes and Qantas can fly
           | whatever they want there.
        
           | discordance wrote:
           | Frontier Airlines, Hawaiian airlines and Azul Brazilian only
           | operate Airbus aircraft
        
             | wil421 wrote:
             | Yea but Qantas never crashed.
        
               | dingaling wrote:
               | QANTAS have had 14 fatal accidents over their history.
               | 
               | The most common claim is that they have never suffered a
               | jet hull loss, which is technically correct as they paid
               | over $100 million to repair 747 VH-OJH instead of letting
               | it be written-off:
               | 
               | https://imgur.com/a/LucEz
        
             | andsoitis wrote:
             | Randomly picked Hawaiian airlines to see what mechanical
             | failures their aircraft have had and I get this list:
             | 
             | - Most recent in 2023: significant problems and disruptions
             | due to problems with the Pratt & Whitney PW1100G engines in
             | their A320neo aircraft -
             | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pratt_%26_Whitney_PW1000G
             | 
             | - Mid-air diversions: several Hawaiian Airlines flights
             | forced to divert to different airports due to mechanical
             | problems. One example is Flight 383 from Honolulu to Kauai
             | and had to return to Honolulu shortly after takeoff due to
             | unspecified issues - https://liveandletsfly.com/hawaiian-
             | airlines-lax-diversion/
             | 
             | - 1994: Flight 481 experience complete hydraulic system
             | failure en route from Maui to Honolulu - https://archives.s
             | tarbulletin.com/2000/12/25/news/story3.htm...
             | 
             | etc.
        
             | trbleclef wrote:
             | Azul also has 40 ATRs and (naturally) Embraer. They
             | actually do operate 2 Boeing 737-400 for cargo use.
        
         | Mountain_Skies wrote:
         | Except during the pre-flight safety presentation, the airlines
         | generally don't want you thinking about safety at all. Simply
         | advertising that they don't have a particular incident prone
         | aircraft in their fleet makes customers think about all the
         | things that could go wrong. A press release highlighting that
         | they don't have that particular aircraft in their fleet during
         | the news cycle of an incident should be sufficient enough.
        
         | hosteur wrote:
         | I don't think they would go for that. Airlines do not want
         | customer to think about the possibility of a crash at all.
        
         | phpisthebest wrote:
         | >>Or no Boeing planes at all?
         | 
         | That will never happen, the federal government would never
         | allow it, and they have many avenues to ensure it
         | 
         | 1. All Future bailouts of Airlines could be contingent on them
         | buying Boeing Aircraft
         | 
         | 2. Direct Bail out of Boeing to make them the most inexpensive
         | plane to buy
         | 
         | 3. Regulation to prevent advertisement of aircraft type
         | 
         | 4. Increase import tariffs or other protectionism to make
         | Airbus and other manufacturers more expensive
         | 
         | Boeing is a national defense contractor and it too important to
         | our national interests to be allowed to fail, if the 4 things I
         | listed above do not happen something else will will prevent
         | Boeing from Going under, or even losing market share.
        
           | rsynnott wrote:
           | Even if Boeing lost its entire civilian market as a result of
           | this sort of thing (which is not plausible) it'd survive as
           | military contractor; it might have to be restructured, and
           | the shareholders would probably be wiped out, but it would
           | survive. Note that Lockheed still exists.
           | 
           | And Boeing would likely not thank the US government for this
           | sort of 'help', because it would be read as, essentially, a
           | trade war, and provoke retaliation. Most of Boeing's market
           | is outside the US.
           | 
           | And also, I mean, this already exists. There are large single
           | supplier airlines. JetBlue is an all-Airbus airline.
           | Southwest and Ryanair are all-Boeing.
        
             | dralley wrote:
             | Boeing's reputation in military circles seems to be, if
             | anything, worse than it's civilian one.
        
           | golergka wrote:
           | Airlines also exist outside of US.
        
         | kube-system wrote:
         | Both Boeing and Airbus planes have had mechanical issues, and I
         | don't think it's in any airline's interest to start slinging
         | shit about passenger safety.
        
         | lm28469 wrote:
         | Ryan air exclusively uses 737 and as far as I know they only
         | had 2 incidents, one being a fake bomb threat and the other
         | (bird strikes) proving the plane was safe
         | 
         | It's (by far) the largest airline in Europe and the third
         | largest in the world in term of passengers per year, I don't
         | see them going anywhere because of the 737 max issues
         | 
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Ryanair_accidents_and...
        
       | cm2187 wrote:
       | I don't think it makes sense for passengers to worry about the
       | plane model. I haven't done the math but conceptually it's like
       | being paranoid about taking plane A that has a 99.99998 safety vs
       | plane B that has a 99.99999 safety.
       | 
       | For the crew, things are a little different given that they are
       | all day long, all year long in the same plane model, so those
       | minuscule risks compound.
       | 
       | People are bad at conceptualising low probabilities. That's why
       | they play lottery!
        
         | light_hue_1 wrote:
         | Of course it makes sense to avoid the 737 MAX. Both at an
         | individual and at a population level.
         | 
         | Someone has to win the lottery and it could be you. The fact
         | that the probability isn't high doesn't matter when you're
         | dying because Boeing wanted to make an extra dollar.
         | 
         | It also makes sense at the population level. It's clear that
         | Congress and the FAA are not capable of overseeing Boeing. And
         | they're too big to even stumble now, never mind fail. The
         | solution is for consumers to punish them. That will get them to
         | fix their problems ASAP.
        
           | dangus wrote:
           | This whole hubbub is hilarious to me.
           | 
           | People are so bad at statistics.
           | 
           | You know who else self-certifies their safety? Car companies.
           | 30,000+ people die every year in car crashes in the US but
           | that's totally fine. (Of course I am well aware of various
           | car company safety scandals where profit was placed above
           | safety).
           | 
           | With US airline travel you have to go back multiple years
           | before you find a single flight-related death on a mainstream
           | commercial jet.
           | 
           | Meanwhile everyone I know seems to refuse public transit to
           | the airport because of the "crackheads" and "homeless people"
           | even though their car is way more dangerous than those
           | supposed threats. I have to beg people I travel with to stop
           | assuming that a taxi is going to be a better experience than
           | a train or even a bus.
           | 
           | The fact that most Americans are against abolishing the 2nd
           | amendment is also another piece of statistical ignorance.
           | It's such a no-brainer win on public safety but everyone is
           | drunk on their revolutionary war propaganda from when guns
           | didn't even have the modern concept of bullets. You're wildly
           | more statistically likely to be shot by a police officer in
           | the US than to be shot by an actual criminal in the UK
           | because that's how dumb enshrining the rights of killing
           | appliances into a constitution is.
           | 
           | I'm all for the customer's power to boycott, but the actual
           | solution that will save lives is for the government and the
           | FAA to tighten regulations and be more thorough.
           | 
           | For a plane type filter I'd personally use it more for
           | comfort or perhaps CO2 emissions preferences and not safety.
        
             | swader999 wrote:
             | Safety stats are lagging indicators.
        
             | mattmaroon wrote:
             | For a piece criticizing people for being dumb you get a lot
             | mixed up.
             | 
             | Car companies don't certify their own safety, they have to
             | send them in to the government to be crash tested. Car
             | deaths don't happen (much) because of mechanical failures,
             | they happen because of crashes. They don't self-certify
             | their crashworthiness.
             | 
             | Most people don't live somewhere where there's a subway to
             | the airport in the USA. You can count on one hand (and
             | probably have multiple fingers left over) the number of
             | cities where you have that option. For most people a bus
             | adds significant time to their trip. I can take a 30 minute
             | Uber whenever I want or a God-only-knows-how-long bus ride.
             | Even if it weren't for the mentally ill (but mostly
             | harmless) passengers, a taxi is in every way a better
             | experience than a bus, and still negligible risk, it just
             | costs more.
             | 
             | Even if we could abolish the second amendment that still
             | leaves over 300 million guns here, and this may surprise
             | you but people also sell things illegally. The problem
             | isn't the law, it's that people want guns.
        
               | dangus wrote:
               | There wouldn't be 300 million guns in citizens' hands
               | without the law existing in the first place. That's why
               | the law is dumb.
               | 
               | Laws can be changed. There's no obligation to double down
               | on them. We don't keep lead pipes legal just because it's
               | very costly and time-intensive to replace all of them.
               | That's only an argument to start sooner rather than
               | later. Guns would be a cakewalk to take off the streets
               | compared to lead pipes. For one thing, guns need a
               | consumable to function at all (ammunition).
               | 
               | Yes, car makers self-certify. You are not correct about
               | that. Government crash tests aren't a prerequisite to
               | being allowed to sell a vehicle.
               | 
               | Example source:
               | 
               | https://www.consumerreports.org/car-safety/some-cars-
               | will-ne...
               | 
               | You can also ask ChatGPT if you want.
               | 
               | And then here we go with the carbrain argument "the only
               | option is cars, America is set up for cars." That was and
               | continues to be an intentional choice. It is not
               | irreversible. It is not something that we are forced to
               | double down on just because that's been our choice so
               | far. Every time a road is built or a highway is widened
               | that's an intentional choice that is no less intentional
               | or costly than sending the money toward transit options
               | or pedestrian/cycling infrastructure.
               | 
               | The Netherlands had this exact same problem in the 70s
               | and reversed it. Something like 90% of daily trips are
               | under 5 miles, which is less than 30 minutes on a bike.
               | The Netherlands has zero cities that are as populous as
               | the top 10 most populous American cities.
               | 
               | "The bus adds significant time" but that's the thing that
               | people say who never take the bus. Can you work on your
               | laptop while you drive? Can you read while you drive? I
               | can do that on the bus. Sounds like I get time back, and
               | my ride is statistically 10x safer.
               | 
               | Also, when it comes to large urban areas, you have to
               | remember that most people live in them. That's why
               | they're large urban areas. A New Yorker who never drives
               | anywhere isn't someone who "doesn't count" because they
               | live in New York and it's an anomaly. More of America
               | depends on public transit than you think.
        
               | mattmaroon wrote:
               | When the second amendment was written, guns were
               | primitive and not much of a problem. Law and order was
               | less institutionalized. People were afraid of being
               | occupied by a foreign government because they recently
               | had been. I agree that if they knew what we know now,
               | they probably would have worded it better. But repealing
               | the second amendment now won't make things better. We
               | made drugs illegal, how's that going?
               | 
               | The article you posted said that 97% of the cars on the
               | road are crash tested by the government. I think my
               | statement on that is substantially accurate.
               | 
               | In America, most large urban areas do not have extensive
               | trains. I've lived all over this country, the only places
               | I can think of where most of an urban area can take any
               | sort of train from most of the city to the airport are
               | NY, Boston, Chicago. There may be some I'm missing, and
               | even in those cities, they don't cover the entire area.
               | Probably at least 75% of the country can't walk from
               | their home to a train and take it to the airport.
               | 
               | America's infrastructure is entirely beyond my ability to
               | control. I can take a one hour bus ride and read I am
               | sure but I've got stuff to do with my day, so I'll take
               | the 30 minute Uber with no nutjobs yelling at thin air.
               | 
               | I think you're also getting confused between population
               | and population density. The US has a population density
               | of 1/12th the Netherlands. You can bike just fine around
               | our densely populated areas, though our poor bike lane
               | design makes it far more dangerous than driving. The
               | Netherlands has a small population but they live much
               | closer together which is what matters for public
               | transport cost. It would cost an order of magnitude more
               | here to provide the same level of service, so we don't.
               | Maybe we should but when I need to get to the airport
               | that's not really on my mind.
        
               | guitarbill wrote:
               | > But repealing the second amendment now won't make
               | things better. We made drugs illegal, how's that going?
               | 
               | People aren't (physically) addicted to guns. If only
               | there were data from other countries...
               | 
               | > I think you're also getting confused between population
               | and population density. The US has a population density
               | of 1/12th the Netherlands.
               | 
               | Few people are demanding public transport spanning entire
               | sparsely populated states.
               | 
               | There are enough cities in the US with comparable
               | population densities to e.g. Amsterdam.
        
               | mattmaroon wrote:
               | There are not actually, and the ones there are (except
               | Miami) are the ones I was counting as having good public
               | transport. (And I've spent a lot of time in SF, I'm being
               | generous counting them as good.) There are only 4 large
               | cities in America that dense. They add up to about ten
               | million residents, or about 3% of our population.
               | 
               | There's one mid sized city (Jersey city) and 4 small
               | cities.
               | 
               | Not even 5% of our population lives in somewhere as dense
               | as Amsterdam.
               | 
               | These arguments come up here all the time because HN has
               | a bike-friendly car hating crowd, but the actual numbers
               | all support that the decision to have public transport vs
               | car culture all stems from population density.
               | Populations all over the world make similar decisions
               | with similar inputs, they just have different inputs.
        
               | jcranmer wrote:
               | > I've lived all over this country, the only places I can
               | think of where most of an urban area can take any sort of
               | train from most of the city to the airport are NY,
               | Boston, Chicago.
               | 
               | DC has the most convenient airport for transit access; if
               | you park, you literally have to work through the train
               | station to get to the airport. Atlanta has a mediocre
               | train system, but it has excellent access to the airport.
               | Philadelphia has a mediocre connection to the airport,
               | but stronger system overall. SFO also is reasonably
               | accessible by BART.
               | 
               | Indeed, the only US city I can think of with a large
               | urban rail system with an abysmal airport connection is
               | LA, although LA's rail transit network in general is just
               | a smorgasbord of sadness.
               | 
               | > The US has a population density of 1/12th the
               | Netherlands.
               | 
               | Yeah, that's because there's large expanses of land in
               | Alaska or the West where literally nobody lives. But most
               | people live in urban environments of some kind; the fifty
               | largest MSAs account for over half the population (too
               | lazy to do the math to get the exact number), and even
               | the fiftieth largest is of a size that would, in Europe,
               | have a functional transit system of some kind.
        
               | mattmaroon wrote:
               | Perhaps fair counting DC. SFO does have it, I'm not sure
               | even half of the people going to/from the airport have
               | access to BART/Caltrain but I am ok counting it too. NYC,
               | Boston. Anything else?
               | 
               | Go down the list of the biggest cities (all of which I've
               | spent time in and commuted to an airport except DC) and
               | ask if the average person can walk to a station and get
               | to it and it's like 90% NFW.
               | 
               | https://simple.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States
               | _ci...
               | 
               | A lot more Americans live in a city that looks like
               | Houston than NY.
               | 
               | (Though I have a place in Phoenix and the tram system is
               | getting better by the year and it is quite possible
               | they'll change categories.)
        
               | jcranmer wrote:
               | City population isn't the right metric to use; you want
               | to use metro population, i.e., MSAs (https://en.wikipedia
               | .org/wiki/Metropolitan_statistical_area).
               | 
               | Most of the cities in the US don't have a functional mass
               | transit system, but there is no population density reason
               | they couldn't.
        
               | mattmaroon wrote:
               | Yes I was using "city" to mean metro area, as it is
               | colloquially.
        
               | jcranmer wrote:
               | You linked to a list sorting cities by population proper,
               | rather than sorting them by metro area population.
        
               | mattmaroon wrote:
               | The picture doesn't change markedly. Not everyone in a
               | metro area has access to a city subway system.
               | 
               | Most Americans can't walk from their door to train
               | station to the airport. However you want to count it,
               | it's unlikely to be even a double digit percent.
        
               | nemomarx wrote:
               | Philly has a very good airport line - I figure most of
               | the Eastern Coast will? Less sprawl here.
        
               | tptacek wrote:
               | Am I missing something, or did you forget New York City,
               | perhaps the best example in the world of a city with
               | great internal rail and godawful airport connectivity?
        
               | jcranmer wrote:
               | NYC has a janky train-to-train-to-train connection to the
               | airports (except LaGuardia), but it at least has train
               | connectivity. LAX is currently in the process of
               | _upgrading_ its connection to NYC-levels of jank.
        
               | tptacek wrote:
               | Right, but "except LaGuardia" is a big caveat! :)
        
               | jcranmer wrote:
               | Hey, NYC might get around to extending the N to LaGuardia
               | before I die!
        
               | rangestransform wrote:
               | even NYC is a stretch in terms of airport access. There
               | is no one-seat ride to any airport unless you live along
               | the route of the LGA bus, which makes it very unpleasant
               | to schlep a 45lb checked luggage to the airport
        
               | ejb999 wrote:
               | Just for the record, the 2nd amendment is not a 'law' -
               | it is a right guaranteed by the constitution.
               | 
               | while it is a simple process to change a law - rights
               | guaranteed by the constitution necessarily and by design,
               | have a much higher bar that must be crossed in order to
               | change - and there is currently not even close to enough
               | people in favor in enough states to revoke the 2nd
               | amendment.
        
               | Eisenstein wrote:
               | Yeah but the laws enforce the limits. A tank is an 'arm'
               | as is a bazooka, but you can't buy either of those with
               | operable weapon systems.
        
               | dangus wrote:
               | Yes you're right, it's not technically a law.
               | 
               | I'm the odd duck in thinking that almost any country
               | would easily find 3/4 of its state/provincial legislature
               | votes needed to approve a repeal of an amendment similar
               | to the 2nd amendment. I am more than baffled by the logic
               | behind keeping it around.
               | 
               | Even the most progressive segments of the US aren't
               | generally in favor of getting rid of it entirely.
               | 
               | The list of countries with similarly permissive gun laws
               | is basically one-hand's worth, and none of them are G20
               | countries. Basically the United States is in the company
               | of Yemen and almost nobody else.
               | 
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overview_of_gun_laws_by_nat
               | ion
               | 
               | (Check out the "comparison" section with the maps)
               | 
               | Anyway, sorry, this is horribly off-topic.
        
               | mattmaroon wrote:
               | And anyway, to your original points, air travel got a lot
               | safer in the last 40 years because of government
               | intervention. Same with cars, perhaps even more
               | dramatically. That's why the hubbub now. The government
               | intervention was decreased and the safety seems to have
               | gone down. (This is true of both the mechanical and
               | operational aspects, see all the articles about
               | increasing runway incursions and near collisions.)
               | 
               | Correlation != causation, but one doesn't have to be
               | ignorant of statistics to suspect the system failure is
               | at least in part due to letting corporations self-
               | certify.
               | 
               | We don't want the regulators to wait until there's
               | another crash to do something about it.
        
             | jjav wrote:
             | > You know who else self-certifies their safety? Car
             | companies.
             | 
             | No, they don't. Car companies (in the US) must send cars to
             | NHTSA for crash testing.
             | 
             | > I'm all for the customer's power to boycott, but the
             | actual solution that will save lives is for the government
             | and the FAA to tighten regulations and be more thorough.
             | 
             | This is true. And how would you get the FAA to care enough
             | to do that?
             | 
             | Boycotts are one way, make them see people care.
        
           | phpisthebest wrote:
           | >>when you're dying because Boeing wanted to make an extra
           | dollar.
           | 
           | I think it is naive and dangerous to simply blame profit
           | motive for the problems at Boeing, Profit has always been
           | goal at Boeing, and I assume is also a goal of Airbus and
           | every other manufacturer.
           | 
           | So if something has changed recently maybe one should look at
           | other corporate priorities that have in reality supplanted
           | profit as the number one goal for many corporations.
           | 
           | In fact Maybe a return to profit motive is what we need to
           | resolve the problems
        
             | rsynnott wrote:
             | So, you could certainly argue that the Max is a result of a
             | fixation on _short-term_ profit; it was arguably an attempt
             | to push an existing design maybe a bit too far, rather than
             | taking the short-term hit and designing a modern
             | competitive plane in the size category. The trouble with
             | that is, the payoff period is longer, so if the decision
             | makers are overly fixated on "number goes up", well.
        
               | barbazoo wrote:
               | I doubt the door bolts issue has anything to do with the
               | type rating hack they did.
        
             | throwaway222577 wrote:
             | Boeing's problem does have to do with making an extra
             | dollar at the expense of other concerns. "Why is Boeing
             | such a shitty corporation?" ---
             | https://robertreich.substack.com/p/why-is-boeing-such-a-
             | shit...
        
               | phpisthebest wrote:
               | First off, I reject outright everything coming from
               | Robert Reich but I digress...
               | 
               | There are some big problems here, first and foremost the
               | idea that because Airbus is owned by governments that
               | makes it some how better. Also they seem to not
               | understand that "Boeing's four largest shareholders"
               | being Vanguard, and State Street means most likely Boeing
               | largest Shareholders are peoples 40K's and IRA's. Meaning
               | everyday middle class American's
               | 
               | Nothing in this standard Reich diatribe against
               | capitalism, in favor of socialist utopia of Workers
               | Unions would solve all problems accurately identifies the
               | actual problems at Boeing I was talking about in my
               | parent comment.
               | 
               | Boeing being owned by Vanguard is a problem, but not
               | because Vangaurd seeks to maximize profits, infact in
               | recent years so called "Stakeholder Capitalism" which I
               | believe Reich is also a proponent of has taken over
               | Vangaurd and even more so Black Rock which puts a whole
               | host of things over profits, and IMO this "Stakeholder
               | Capitalism" is the root cause of the problem. It is a
               | cancer in Business.
        
         | blcknight wrote:
         | I'm sure it's to exclude the MAX but I like it so I can find
         | specific planes I want to fly. The old narrow/wide body filter
         | wasn't granular enough.
        
           | maccard wrote:
           | Agreed. I fly between the UK and US a few times a year, and
           | if I could filter by expected plane type for comfort on an 11
           | hour flight, I would.
        
             | ghaff wrote:
             | I don't do a hard filter up-front, but for longer flights,
             | I'll definitely look at plane type and seating availability
             | before I book if there are reasonable options (for comfort
             | reasons).
        
         | TheAceOfHearts wrote:
         | It's the only tool or mechanism available to regular consumers
         | by which they can vote with their wallets. If you're unhappy
         | with how Boeing has been handling their business in recent
         | years, this is the most amount of influence a regular person
         | can exert. Even if your individual risk is miniscule, it serves
         | as a tool to signal discontent.
        
           | DrNosferatu wrote:
           | Indeed. But, don't forget you can vote with your political
           | vote - or even better - with civic participation: this is the
           | most effective way to make change happen.
        
           | awhitby wrote:
           | They can vote with their vote too. If regulators do their
           | job, grounded airplanes start to become quite a large expense
           | for airlines and influence their fleet choices.
        
         | stringsandchars wrote:
         | > I don't think it makes sense for passengers to worry about
         | the plane model.
         | 
         | Why do you think we should surrender the tiny amount of agency
         | that we still have, in the face of corporate profit-driven
         | deterioration?
         | 
         | For me, this isn't about a measured risk in relation to other
         | known risks in my life (crossing the road, cycling, drinking
         | alcohol). It's about removing a totally unnecessary risk caused
         | by greed and corporate heedlessness.
         | 
         | A similar case: I stopped eating British Beef when a British
         | minister fed his daughter a beefburger[0] to 'prove' it was
         | "totally safe", during the 'Mad Cow Disease' (BSE) crisis in
         | 1990. I wasn't significantly worried about contracting BSE at
         | the time, but the lengths and efforts that the government went
         | to, to convince people to eat more beef for 'patriotic'
         | reasons, when the farmers had fed their cows on ground-up
         | carcasses for economic gain, meant that my boycott was a small
         | but meaningful expression of my own agency when faced by this
         | sort of appalling behavior.
         | 
         | I feel the same way about Boeing, and about the greed of
         | airlines (like RyanAir), that think only about profit and see
         | passenger safety as an irritating distraction that is only
         | important in terms of 'brand perception'.
         | 
         | [0] https://www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/bse-crisis-john-
         | se...
        
           | cm2187 wrote:
           | You may choose to not fly on a boeing plane for political
           | reasons. But if you are concerned about risk, it's not about
           | comparing the risk of a flight in Max vs riding a bicycle.
           | It's about a flight in Max vs say, an A320.
           | 
           | What I am saying is that those respective risks are so tiny
           | that they are immaterial, and not worth worrying about. If
           | you want to spend energy making your trip safer, you should
           | worry much more about what car model will drive you to or
           | from the airport, or level of crime in public transports,
           | etc.
        
             | the_mitsuhiko wrote:
             | > You may choose to not fly on a boeing plane for political
             | reasons
             | 
             | These are not political reasons. I'm for many years now
             | trying to avoid flying on the 737 MAX and 787. Not because
             | I dislike the planes even as a passenger, or because I
             | worry about crashing, or because I have a political agenda.
             | I want to use the little bit of voting with the wallet I
             | have. This is the core of how our system works.
             | 
             | I understand that in the grand scheme of things this is not
             | really doing anything, but if a sufficient number of people
             | make airlines uncomfortable they will increase the pressure
             | on Boeing to improve their processes.
             | 
             | The current duopoly/monopoly on aircraft manufacturers is
             | preventing innovation in the space and I do not appreciate
             | this a single bit.
        
               | Eisenstein wrote:
               | I understand your reasoning and completely agree with it,
               | but I suggest that if you feel strongly about this that
               | you put some effort into actual politics, because in my
               | opinion the only way that issues like these are solved is
               | by regulation and giving teeth to agencies charged with
               | it. Unfortunately our consumer dollars are insignificant
               | to a company like Boeing supplying a very high-value
               | market that is incredibly inelastic and 'too-big-to-
               | fail', so the only way to dis-incentivize evil behavior
               | is by punishing them for doing it.
        
               | newswasboring wrote:
               | > but if a sufficient number of people make airlines
               | uncomfortable they will increase the pressure on Boeing
               | to improve their processes
               | 
               | I hear this sentiment a lot. And logically, it is true.
               | But maybe it's my cynic nature, but isn't this like
               | counting on a natural disaster level of impossible? This
               | is something which can happen but has happened in history
               | very few times (I personally can't think of any
               | instances, but there has to be some company ruined by a
               | boycott). I am not saying you are wrong, but I find this
               | a naive view.
               | 
               | Edit: Let me clarify a bit. I am not saying companies
               | have not taken feedback through what sells and doesn't
               | sell, that of course happens. But I don't know of many
               | instances where individuals spontaneously or otherwise
               | caused a company to change their internal structures and
               | processes. The implication that consumers have a knob to
               | finetune a company process is what I disagree with.
        
               | pyduan wrote:
               | > These are not political reasons.
               | 
               | > I want to use the little bit of voting with the wallet
               | I have.
               | 
               | Technically, voting with your wallet _is_ a political
               | statement, which you are sending to Boeing management and
               | shareholders to make the world a tiny bit less profit-at-
               | all-cost-driven.
               | 
               | It is interesting that people automatically equate
               | "political" with party or country politics, which gives
               | it a bad rep. When in fact it is a healthy thing if more
               | people were to think and act like you and stand for their
               | principles on issues however minor-sounding.
        
               | hiatus wrote:
               | > Technically, voting with your wallet is a political
               | statement, which you are sending to Boeing management and
               | shareholders to make the world a tiny bit less profit-at-
               | all-cost-driven.
               | 
               | This must be why corporations are people in the US.
               | Voting with your wallet is an economic statement, not a
               | political one. It can be done for any reason, let alone
               | an ideological one. Not letting your kid go bungee
               | jumping because you feel it unsafe is not a political
               | statement.
        
               | redcobra762 wrote:
               | Flying on a Boeing plane is incredibly safe, millions of
               | people do it incident free every year.
               | 
               | Bungee jumping is actually a great comparison, because
               | it's _also_ an incredibly safe activity, with only two
               | dozen or so people dying in this century.
               | 
               | To put it in comparable terms, and based on random
               | Googling, bungee jumping is approx 2 micromorts, compared
               | to swimming, which is 12, and flying, which is 2.1 per
               | 30,000 miles flown.
        
               | function_seven wrote:
               | No it's not. It's a statement, yes. Not a political one
               | necessarily.
               | 
               | I stopped buying El Monterrey frozen burritos last year.
               | They removed some of the beef and replaced it with filler
               | rice. I did not appreciate that cost-cutting, so I
               | stopped giving them my money. It's not a political stance
               | that I have here, it's an economic one. I don't like
               | shrinkflation so I don't reward it.
               | 
               | I will refuse to buy any GM car because they made a
               | decision to juice their subscription revenue. This has
               | nothing to do with my political stance. It's an economic
               | decision.
               | 
               | And so with the Boeing planes. They're obviously cutting
               | corners in their safety department. The result is _still_
               | a mode of travel that 's really safe, but the way we got
               | to that level of safety is by _not_ cutting corners. I
               | may decline to reward a company that has decided to trade
               | a little of that hard-won safety margin for some better
               | financial numbers.
        
               | ClumsyPilot wrote:
               | > Technically, voting with your wallet is a political
               | statement
               | 
               | There is a strange thing going on where any agency by
               | individual citizen is called political. My efforts are
               | somehow not a valid market activity, they are politics,
               | and should not go too far.
               | 
               | But any political effort by business, for example to
               | undermine consumer safety, is 'just business' or 'free
               | market'. They should not be judged for doing so.
        
               | seadan83 wrote:
               | Exercising choice as a consumer is not by definition
               | political, but can be political. I think the technicality
               | you pointed out is incorrect.
               | 
               | Oxford: (political) "Of, belonging to, or concerned with
               | the form, organization, and administration of a state,
               | and with the regulation of its relations with other
               | states." [1]
               | 
               | Webster: (political, (2)) "of, relating to, involving, or
               | involved in politics and especially party politics" [2]
               | 
               | I would therefore interpret taking a principled stance
               | because of concerns for personal safety as not political.
               | As another example, OTOH, given party politics can be
               | either pro or anti-union, boycotting Boeing (based on
               | party politics) because it was pro or anti-union - would
               | be political.
               | 
               | [1] https://www.oed.com/search/dictionary/?scope=Entries&
               | q=polit...
               | 
               | [2] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/political
        
             | dopidopHN wrote:
             | If you don't like the free market you can go live in ...
             | well. Maybe err. Well, you should like the free market.
        
             | chronofar wrote:
             | I don't think they're as small as you're saying. There have
             | been multiple well documented incidents with 737 MAX that
             | have not been with the A320. Maybe you think it's small
             | enough to not worry about, said incidents are enough for me
             | to want to avoid that aircraft entirely. Absolute risk is
             | certainly still low, but I'll take the safer in comparative
             | risk any day there.
             | 
             | Paying attention to planes and risks of other forms of
             | transport are not mutually exclusive.
        
               | onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
               | The 737 MAX has crashed 2 times in 800,000 flights -
               | >100M passengers.
               | 
               | The industry average for plane crashes is 1 in 16.7M
               | flights. The 737 MAX is 1 in 400,000.
               | 
               | This seems a lot worse than most people are making it out
               | to be on here. It's close to 2 orders of magnitude worse
               | than the industry average.
               | 
               | And if I'm doing my math right, you have a higher chance
               | of dying getting aboard a 737 MAX than you do getting in
               | your car (obviously, you're going to travel A LOT farther
               | on the MAX than you would on an average car trip - so per
               | mile it's still significantly safer than a car).
        
         | ReptileMan wrote:
         | >I haven't done the math but conceptually it's like being
         | paranoid about taking plane A that has a 99.99998 safety vs
         | plane B that has a 99.99999 safety.
         | 
         | That is literally twice as dangerous.
        
           | glimshe wrote:
           | The point is that you will still not win the lottery if you
           | buy two tickets.
        
             | PedroBatista wrote:
             | It's because of that type of sentiment that Boeing has been
             | doing what they have been doing.
             | 
             | Until one day you close the bedroom door 5% harder than
             | usual and the whole house collapses.
        
               | inkcapmushroom wrote:
               | Exactly, it's not about the marginal increase in risk
               | today, it's about fighting the culture of
               | enshittification the only way you can, with your wallet.
        
             | gcanyon wrote:
             | I _love_ this analogy, thanks!
        
           | D_Alex wrote:
           | Actually... 737 MAX is roughly 30 times as dangerous as the
           | other planes in its category (eg. A320).
           | 
           | Source: https://www.airsafe.com/events/models/rate_mod.htm
        
             | kube-system wrote:
             | Every MAX flying now has had updates made to address the
             | two events captured in those statistics, so those stats
             | capture something different than today's reality.
        
               | lamontcg wrote:
               | They're all being put together by Spirit Aerosystems
               | which is a company that makes zero gross profit and has
               | interest rate payments which are half of its gross
               | revenue on top of that, which was spun off out of Boeing
               | in order to aggressively cut costs and bust unions and
               | fluff up Boeing's stock price.
               | 
               | That hasn't changed at all.
        
               | kube-system wrote:
               | Spirit Aerosystems also does work for Airbus.
        
               | lamontcg wrote:
               | "Our business depends largely on sales of components for
               | a single aircraft program, the B737 MAX"
               | 
               | -- Spirit Aerosystems 2022 10-K filing
               | 
               | They do 3 times as much business with Boeing than Airbus.
               | 
               | (Airbus may also wrap Spirit in their own Q/A process to
               | mitigate the issues, which Boeing is certainly lacking)
        
               | albert180 wrote:
               | Different purchasers can have different expectations of
               | quality and pay the company differently;-)
        
               | pi-e-sigma wrote:
               | If you apply this reasoning to the MAX statistics, then
               | you have to apply it to the statistics of all the other
               | planes, too, which also received various changes and
               | updates during their service lives improving their safety
               | and you are back to square one, that is MAX is much less
               | safe than other planes
        
               | kube-system wrote:
               | It is definitely fair to apply that to other planes. e.g
               | the DC10
        
               | pi-e-sigma wrote:
               | That's the problem with the reputation and the perception
               | of safety. If you lose it then even if you finally fix
               | the underlying issues people will still have a hard time
               | believing you.
        
               | kube-system wrote:
               | That's why we have regulators who scientifically qualify
               | safety, rather than leaning on public opinion. Public
               | opinion isn't an accurate methodology.
        
         | ldoughty wrote:
         | I agree that people are bad with probability like you explain
         | 
         | However, I think the issue with the 737 MAX is that it's been
         | involved in several high profile catastrophic mistakes while
         | only being in service for a few years. It's expected that a
         | page in service for 20 years might have wear and tear that
         | leads to issues... But brand new planes crashing back to back
         | shortly after being released..
         | 
         | The stats on the Wikipedia page state that the MAX has 4
         | fatalities per 1 million flights, while the prior generation
         | has 0.2 fatalities per million flights [1]. Of course, some if
         | this is due to the two crashes right out the door, and if
         | excluded, perhaps they are similar... But then this new door
         | blowout issue occured... And after investigation multiple
         | planes had the same issue (so it likely is a production issue,
         | not an individual worker screwing up one time).
         | 
         | Overall I agree plane model should mean little to travelers...
         | But the MAX is trying very hard to prove it's a lemon.
         | 
         | 1: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737_MAX
        
           | dangus wrote:
           | Not to defend Boeing since the circumstances of the MCAS
           | controversy didn't involve honest well-intentioned design
           | mistakes, but I would argue that reliability is a bathtub
           | curve so a new plane model having more issues is expected.
        
           | lxgr wrote:
           | A 20-year old plane is probably safer than one fresh off the
           | assembly line, given how long they are usually in service:
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathtub_curve
        
           | SoftTalker wrote:
           | > several high profile catastrophic mistakes while only being
           | in service for a few years
           | 
           | This is absolutely typical. Problems shake out in the first
           | few years of a new model. This isn't to excuse any failures
           | on the part of Boeing or their subcontractors, but we see the
           | same pattern in software, vehicles, or any other complicated
           | products.
        
         | trabant00 wrote:
         | Not only that but the crew is much more informed and qualified
         | to make a decision and it's their life on the line as well.
         | 
         | There will always be incidents no matter how rare,
         | investigations will always show that the something could have
         | been done better because nothing can be done perfect, the press
         | will always inflame the public and the public will want to have
         | an opinion/decision no matter how out uninformed.
        
         | figassis wrote:
         | I think being unreasonably pissed about certain things is good
         | because it provides some randomness/wildcard behavior for those
         | who enjoy modeling the masses behavior for profit, and think
         | making mistakes is only about the numbers. Some things should
         | have a high cost just because.
        
         | Havoc wrote:
         | > People are bad at conceptualising low probabilities.
         | 
         | Speaking of which - the probabilities are exactly the same for
         | passengers as cabin crew and there is no compounding effect :p
         | 
         | Number of times you roll the dicey has no effect on
         | probabilities and thus no impact on whether make sense.
         | 
         | I'm not doing this often this can swallow more risk is very
         | human thinking
        
           | cm2187 wrote:
           | Only if you want to meaure the number of times you die on
           | average. But you typically want to measure the risk of dying
           | once over a career as a crew, and that is very much a
           | function of how many times you roll the dice. Your
           | probability of survival is 1-(prob of no crash per
           | flight)^(flight count), and it is not linear. Whereas a
           | passenger plays the game many less times.
           | 
           | If you don't take my made up numbers but wikipedia [1], and
           | if I get my math right, B737 max has 4 accidents per millions
           | flights, vs 0.2 for previous B737. That means that over a
           | career of 15 years, working 200 days per year, 3 flights a
           | day, a crew has a chance of dying of 3.54% with the Max vs
           | 0.18% for the older models. 0.18% might be non material but
           | 3.54% starts to be significant. (a passenger that takes 10
           | B737 max flights a year over that period only has a 0.06%
           | probability to die).
           | 
           | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737_MAX#Accidents_an
           | d_i...
        
           | ammasant wrote:
           | If two people perform an action with 1/10,000 chance of
           | death, but person A performs it once per year and person B
           | performs it 10,000 times per year, whose life is more heavily
           | dependent on the underlying fatality rate of the action?
        
             | drc500free wrote:
             | See also - vending machines kill more people than sharks
             | do.
        
         | cascom wrote:
         | If people want to exercise choice - by all means, and I'm happy
         | at the margin to punish Boeing, but I agree from a personal
         | risk standpoint it's probably inconsequential.
         | 
         | I'm always amazed at where people spend energy mitigating risk,
         | I had a coworker who was worried about taking the Covid vaccine
         | but was hardly the picture of health and rode a motorcycle to
         | work many days - it's like putting down the beer, eating a
         | salad, and taking the bus will give you massive gains in life
         | expectancy vs some minor unknown delta with the Covid vaccine,
         | but to each their own. I just wish we could get people to use
         | micromorts (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micromort)
        
           | simmerup wrote:
           | I think if you zoom out you'll realise that none of us
           | actually know much about risk of things we're doing.
           | 
           | Like there's a hundred ways changing your diet could harm you
           | rather than help even if you think you're reducing your risk.
        
             | cascom wrote:
             | I don't disagree, but I'm also not talking about debating a
             | Mediterranean diet vs keto, I'm talking about cutting out
             | fast food and big gulps...
        
           | ejb999 wrote:
           | my favorite was watching people - riding a bike in traffic
           | without a helmet - but wearing a mask (even when not required
           | by law).
           | 
           | Talk about not understanding risk.
        
         | lamontcg wrote:
         | I don't care as much about the immediate risks as I care about
         | punishing Boeing for their management culture -- and I don't
         | care about the model as much as the Airbus/Boeing tilt of the
         | carrier I'm booking with.
         | 
         | This does mean that this utility isn't really that useful,
         | though, and its simpler to just book with e.g. Delta over
         | Alaska.
        
         | marcosdumay wrote:
         | Your "plane A" number is off by an order of magnitude. The
         | "plane B" number is about right.
         | 
         | Now you will certainly find it interesting to look at the
         | safety profile of your other activities. And estimate repeating
         | those risks through your life. That order of magnitude makes
         | all the difference in the world.
        
         | JCharante wrote:
         | I think about plane models when it comes to comfort. I always
         | prefer A350s over 787s, always prefer A320s over the 737 family
         | because of the 737 family's more narrow cabin. I genuinely
         | don't like flying on Boeing planes.
        
         | elyall wrote:
         | An alternative use case: on a long flight I would prefer to fly
         | on a 787 or A350 as these composite aircraft maintain higher
         | cabin humidity and pressure which is easier on the body.
        
         | standardUser wrote:
         | I am not concerned about safety, but I am concerned about
         | seating layout. Some airlines, particularly United and
         | American, use incredibly tight seat configurations that are a
         | bridge too far for most other airlines. Getting stuck on those
         | particular planes have been among my worst flight experiences.
         | Now I just try to avoid those carriers, but all I really want
         | are to avoid those seat configurations.
         | 
         | In general, the more consumer knowledge the better. You may not
         | know why I care and you may not think it matters, but how about
         | just letting me decide anyway? I think the same goes for food
         | labelling, country of origin, labor conditions and so on. We
         | allow companies an insane degree of secrecy.
        
       | nullandvoid wrote:
       | Do a significant amount of people actually worry about this when
       | booking a flight? The chances of incident, even on these models
       | with recent incidents is still so unbelievably low, no?
       | 
       | I guess it's a form of being able to vote with your wallet;
       | forcing the manufacturers to spend additional money/time on QC.
        
         | light_hue_1 wrote:
         | Yes. I do. It's a small risk but one that I can trivially
         | avoid. It takes seconds. Why not?
         | 
         | And as you said. Force them to clean their act up.
        
         | TheAceOfHearts wrote:
         | The risk is low, but voting with your wallet is the only tool
         | available to regular people. If you're unhappy with how Boeing
         | has been handling their business, what other actions are
         | available to you?
        
           | CoastalCoder wrote:
           | In the U.S., organizing to get one's congressman to take
           | action.
           | 
           | It's probably a big uphill battle due to industry lobbying,
           | but I expect it's possible if there were enough popular
           | support.
        
         | Lio wrote:
         | What's the downside for you? If you don't care just ignore it.
         | 
         | Having the option, even if rarely used, is a good signal to
         | bean counters that cutting corners on safety or quality or even
         | leg room is unacceptable.
        
         | makeitdouble wrote:
         | People don't make these choices based on probability, it come
         | down to whether you see as worth your time and money to think
         | about it.
         | 
         | That's the same for buying a super sturdy SUV for commuting.
         | Your overall chances of getting into an accident where you'll
         | be crushed between two semi is astronomically low, but many
         | people will still choose that option over just a normally safe
         | car.
         | 
         | The question comes down yo how much they'd bare disruption to
         | assert that choice, and it doesn't look to me like a costly or
         | super problematic choice here
        
         | PedroBatista wrote:
         | Yes, they do but only for a finite amount of time and most will
         | board the plane because realistically they "don't have any
         | other choice" given their timeframe ( going home for Christmas,
         | attending a meeting in the morning, etc ). However long term
         | they internalize ( rightfully ) Boeing equals bad and danger.
         | If an airline comes up and announces all their fleet is now all
         | brand new Airbus people notice and prefer that, airlines know
         | that and if the numbers are close they'll run Airbus. However..
         | aircraft buying and operation is an incredible complex world,
         | history and politics are a huge factor too, safety is not a
         | factor, "risk" is, they overlap but are not really the same.
         | Most of this will go away in a month or two, until the next
         | plane goes down.
        
         | mattmaroon wrote:
         | I have a pilot friend who told me he wont fly (even as a
         | passenger) on any Max. He flies Boeing 737s.
         | 
         | I'm not sure a pilot who has never flown the type is really any
         | better positioned to judge this than anyone else, but I do
         | think that if he feels that way, a whole lot of non-pilots do
         | too. If you know pilots you know they are not a cautious lot
         | generally. While they get a metric shit-ton of caution trained
         | into them, there are a whole lot of cowboys in the flying
         | world.
        
       | cryptos wrote:
       | A little indicator about technical failures (or groundings) per
       | aircraft model would be nice to have :-)
        
         | lxgr wrote:
         | Unfortunately, an elevated number of groundings can indicate
         | two different things: A cautious, proactive regulator and good
         | safety culture, or a more reactive/lenient regulator and a
         | plane so unsafe, they were finally forced to act.
        
         | teeray wrote:
         | Proxy measures about things passengers consider "bad" are
         | probably more useful than groundings alone. Compute some score
         | based on things like:
         | 
         | 1) Number of passenger fatalities as a result of a mechanical
         | failure of the aircraft.
         | 
         | 2) Number of passenger items ejected from the aircraft during
         | flight.
        
           | cryptos wrote:
           | To 2) We need an app that would increase the counter for
           | dropping iPhones automatically ;-)
        
       | TekMol wrote:
       | I always use Google Flights and wouldn't know why to us Kayak or
       | any other flight search.
       | 
       | Am I missing something?
        
         | thallium205 wrote:
         | Kayak can arrange your car, hotel, etc. Google only does
         | flights.
        
       | seydor wrote:
       | well good that they allow them to include models as well. Some
       | people like living dangerously
        
         | nathancahill wrote:
         | Me IRL
        
         | ghaff wrote:
         | Some people also find certain models more comfortable for
         | longer flights. To the degree I look at the plane model (and
         | seating) that's why I care.
        
         | swasheck wrote:
         | lol. i'm looking for a flight on the Tu-104 please.
        
       | gaiagraphia wrote:
       | With all the media attention, and various departments breathing
       | down each other's necks and demanding checks, could we assume
       | that the 737 is now the safest aircraft to fly in?
       | 
       | Is there some type of model or theory which dictates that doing
       | something just after a tragedy is the safest possible moment?
        
         | Saus wrote:
         | This was said on aviation forums after the whole MCAS
         | situation, with the grounding and the checks.
         | 
         | Yet here we are due to a door that just flown out.
        
         | LadyCailin wrote:
         | I mean, I assume the passengers of Ethiopian flight 302 would
         | have an opinion on this.
        
         | KptMarchewa wrote:
         | This is valid assumption when talking about particular airlines
         | and their maintenance model, yet not good when talking about
         | bad design.
        
       | tekla wrote:
       | Supid hysteria
        
       | swader999 wrote:
       | I'm at the point now where I choose an airline based on them not
       | using Boeing. I don't even fly that much. It's not that I'm
       | worried much about the safety, I'm just so annoyed by their
       | culture and the stories I've heard over the years about how they
       | gutted a once great engineering force.
        
       | hoseja wrote:
       | Boeing lobbyists furiously working to make aircraft racism
       | illegal. Civil Aeronautic Rights Act.
        
       | amai wrote:
       | Pretty important feature for all people flying in Russia
       | nowadays. People there only trust Embraer Aircrafts, because all
       | other aircrafts can't be maintained properly due to sanctions.
        
         | karaterobot wrote:
         | If this is true, it's the most interesting thing I've learned
         | from this thread.
        
       | paxys wrote:
       | I don't think people realize that their taxi to the airport is
       | significantly more dangerous than flying in a 737 MAX.
        
         | lnxg33k1 wrote:
         | So yeah but I think the experience might play a difference,
         | going down from 10000 mt is a different dying experience from
         | being hit by a car and don't live through anything
        
         | rsynnott wrote:
         | Sure, but avoiding that risk is inconvenient, whereas going for
         | a 737-800 or A320 over a 737 Max may be no effort at all
         | depending on the flight (this sort of thing is really bad news
         | for Ryanair if it catches on, say; Ryanair's most important
         | routes are typically of the 20-flight-a-day variety and there's
         | lots of competition who don't have Maxes).
        
         | marcosdumay wrote:
         | Hum, no. The safety track of that plane specifically is bad
         | enough that you are not automatically correct.
        
           | mardifoufs wrote:
           | Nope, I don't think so. It still has had "just" 2 crashes.
        
         | swasheck wrote:
         | statistically (from a certain perspective) i agree with you but
         | cold statistics dont explain the reality of existing as a human
         | being. there's something about flying in a thin,
         | aluminum/composite tube with 100-300 other "souls" many miles
         | in the sky that many find extremely uncomfortable. the
         | magnitude and scale seem to be perceived differently by the
         | human psyche.
         | 
         | additionally, once we dive deeper into the statistics, it may
         | be worth evaluating deaths, critical injuries, and minor
         | injuries dimenions by different measures (per transport, per
         | capita, per accident/incident). i wonder what story those
         | analyses would tell.
        
         | tayo42 wrote:
         | lately Im amused by this because I actually got into a car
         | accident on my way to airport (was in an uber/lyft that got
         | rear ended on a highway) So for trips to and from the airport,
         | they have been more dangerous for me lol.
        
         | JCharante wrote:
         | And this is what I do:
         | 
         | Pick a taxi that won't speed or make dangerous merges.
         | 
         | Pick a taxi with working seat belts.
         | 
         | Pick a taxi that uses a modern car for modern safety features.
         | 
         | When available, take the train.
         | 
         | Don't take a helicopter to the airport.
         | 
         | This is like saying you shouldn't wear helmets while bicycling
         | because you're more likely to die on your commute to work
         | anyways.
        
           | pb7 wrote:
           | > Pick a taxi that won't speed or make dangerous merges.
           | 
           | > Pick a taxi with working seat belts.
           | 
           | > Pick a taxi that uses a modern car for modern safety
           | features.
           | 
           | Huh? Do you want to share how you manage to do that? Because
           | for me, it's a coin flip whether I have to backseat drive the
           | entire way with my drivers and that doesn't at all include
           | the risk of other drivers on the road.
        
           | paxys wrote:
           | > Pick a taxi that won't speed or make dangerous merges.
           | 
           | > Pick a taxi with working seat belts.
           | 
           | > Pick a taxi that uses a modern car for modern safety
           | features.
           | 
           | How exactly do you do any of this? The fact that no rideshare
           | app offers these filters even though it would be trivial to
           | add them kinda proves my point. People largely don't care
           | about the safety rating of the car they are in as long as the
           | ride is a few cents cheaper. But because the news tells us
           | that Boeing planes are death traps everyone has an opinion on
           | it.
        
       | JumpinJack_Cash wrote:
       | This is great, I now want to exclude all planes but the Max to
       | try and scoop up all Boeing Max flights I possibly can.
       | 
       | Unfortunately I don't have the time or the logistics would be a
       | bit crazy, trying to reversely find a reason to fly a route
       | operated by the Max lol.
       | 
       | But seriously, if people were this anal about cars or buildings
       | or trains the whole world would come to a screeching halt.
       | 
       | The lesson I suppose is that when building anything it's
       | imperative to capitalize during the period of maximal logarithmic
       | improvement because once you arrive at the end of the S-curve and
       | the battle of the 9s begins it gets ugly real fast.
       | 
       | People will start spitting in your face forgetting everything you
       | did in the past and demanding an ever fast and sudden march to
       | the 200th decimal place.
        
         | albert180 wrote:
         | Trains usually don't crash because the manufacturer isn't able
         | to build them properly
        
           | JumpinJack_Cash wrote:
           | they actually do, they get out of the rails
        
       | dreamcompiler wrote:
       | It's going to be very difficult to avoid the 737 MAX going
       | forward. Airlines love these planes because they save fuel and
       | Boeing has a waiting list for them out to 2030. AFAIK you cannot
       | order a new 737 from Boeing that is not a MAX.
       | 
       | The only viable solution is an independent safety board (paid for
       | out of Boeing profits) that supervises every aspect of design and
       | production at Boeing and its contractors until Boeing learns how
       | to build safe airplanes again.
        
         | echelon wrote:
         | "If it's a Boeing, I'm not going."
         | 
         | I already look for these planes and will schedule my itinerary
         | around avoiding them.
        
           | redcobra762 wrote:
           | You can try, but the point is that will only get harder, and
           | it's not like the economic pain will be felt in any specific
           | sense. You'll just fly less.
        
             | lawlessone wrote:
             | Is this a US thing? In the EU and i've found as long as
             | avoid Ryanair everyone else is using Airbus.
        
               | redcobra762 wrote:
               | Southwest and United have the most, so yeah.
               | 
               | https://simpleflying.com/boeing-737-max-airlines/
               | 
               | Americans fly the most out of any country though, so it's
               | unsurprising America also buys the most planes.
               | 
               | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_airl
               | ine...
        
               | hedora wrote:
               | United is absolutely horrible, so I've been actively
               | avoiding them for over a decade.
               | 
               | Southwest was my go to, but I'll happily fly a crappier
               | non-boeing airline if it's an option.
        
               | colingoodman wrote:
               | I don't care for any airline, but while I see your
               | disgust for United expressed often I haven't had any
               | issues with them. Granted I only fly them a few times a
               | year. Either they've improved a lot or I have been lucky!
        
         | jmward01 wrote:
         | Comparing the 737 max (all variants) to nearly any other
         | passenger transport shows that it is safe and we are seeing why
         | in real time. An issue happened which correctly caused
         | immediate grounding and inspections followed by an in-depth
         | review and likely corrective action both to the issue and the
         | practices that created it. Implying it isn't safe is continuing
         | to feed a false narrative that encourages unreasonable fear of
         | flying and is holding aviation back.
        
           | OvbiousError wrote:
           | Except if part of the wall goes flying off you mean?
        
             | hedora wrote:
             | Or if the still-not-redundant air speed sensor fails.
             | 
             | There's also the recent report that parts of the tail wing
             | were not properly torqued, and they're internally falling
             | apart.
        
               | dghlsakjg wrote:
               | Do you mean the AoA sensor?
               | 
               | There have always been at least three airspeed pitots on
               | every 737 model.
               | 
               | Also, as of 2022, there are 2 physical sensors and a
               | computed value from alternate sources for AoA on all
               | flying MAX planes
        
             | swasheck wrote:
             | it does seem like there's been an uptick in "incidents"
             | involving boeing planes, in particular, and maybe that's
             | because of the fallout of the merger between boeing and md
             | (https://qz.com/1776080/how-the-mcdonnell-douglas-boeing-
             | merg...), and even then i'm not sure if that's
             | _statistically_ accurate. this does not, however,
             | invalidate the CP premise that it's generally safe to fly,
             | even on the Max series and that is largely because this
             | part of the process is working (grounding, checking,
             | remediating) even if the development and manufacturing
             | processes have failed.
             | 
             | however, i'll also agree with you that being subject to the
             | effects of iterative improvement is uncomfortable in the
             | air transport context.
        
           | turquoisevar wrote:
           | I've said this before, and I'll repeat it: yes, flying is
           | statistically safer than other forms of transport to the
           | point that you're more likely to die on your way to the
           | airport than on a flight.
           | 
           | BUT that knowledge shouldn't be used to become complacent to
           | the point that we let things slip, nor should it be used to
           | ignore other indicators that could signal a negative trend.
           | 
           | "And we are seeing why in real time" only plays into that
           | complacency because it suggests that the post-incident acts
           | are the goal, while it used to be that they're means to a
           | goal, the goal being that they're not needed in the first
           | place.
           | 
           | In particular, with the door plug, the issue is that they go
           | against best practices that have been established yesteryear
           | (i.e., making them bigger than the hole and plugging from the
           | inside to leverage cabin pressure instead of working against
           | cabin pressure) and that's aside from the knowledge both
           | inside Boeing and supplier Spirit AeroSystem of quality
           | issues.
           | 
           | On a macro level, there's a more considerable erosion of
           | aviation safety at play, however, especially in the US. This
           | erosion has only marginally led to increased deaths (albeit
           | preventable) but has significantly increased the level of
           | near-catastrophic events. This, in my humble opinion, is an
           | essential signal in terms of potential future fatalities.
           | 
           | I'm talking about:
           | 
           | - things at the manufacturer level, of which Boeing with
           | their 737 MAX fulfills an emblematic role (e.g., MCAS, door
           | plug, loose bolts, etc); - regulators' lack of proper
           | enforcement (e.g., FAA being extremely hesitant to ground
           | planes after the MCAS incidents, making them one of the last
           | ones to do so, FAA being extremely deferential in the
           | certification process, allowing Boeing to essentially self-
           | certify most of the essential stuff, if not outright granting
           | them waivers or allowing Boeing to omit information about
           | specific systems from flight manuals); - lacks regulation on
           | crew hours, leading to fatigued crew; - overworked and
           | understaffed ATC; - "safe enough" mentality when it comes to
           | protocols at and around airports to increase the number of
           | movements
           | 
           | The list goes on and on. The common denominator? Money.
           | 
           | It's cheaper and more expeditious to let Boeing evade proper
           | certification and to let them sell a range of different
           | models under the same type certification.
           | 
           | It's better for the economy not to ground planes made by
           | America's darling manufacturer.
           | 
           | It's cheaper for American airlines to only count the hours
           | the planes' doors are closed as work hours and to not be too
           | strict with mandatory rest requirements.
           | 
           | It's cheaper to hire contractors to do ATC and to have one
           | person do a job that would be safer to split amongst 3,
           | especially when it costs more to attract two more people.
           | 
           | It's cheaper to cram more planes onto a runway than to spread
           | them out; it also makes more money for airlines and airports.
           | So it's better to have pilots do a visual approach and visual
           | separation; not only does this unload some of the
           | responsibility to the pilots, freeing up ATC resources, but
           | it also requires less separation, which means more movements
           | at the airport. This practice has the blessing of the FAA, by
           | the way, this is straight from the FAA Safety Alert For
           | Operators SAFO 21005[0]. IFALPA, in turn, released a bulletin
           | to highlight how the US practice isn't in line with ICAO
           | practices and to advise non-US pilots on how to handle
           | this[1].
           | 
           | On their own, none of these might immediately lead to a
           | noticeable effect in aviation safety, but combined, they most
           | certainly do.
           | 
           | For every incident that makes headlines, ten never make it
           | into mainstream news, which hides the significant uptick in
           | near-catastrophic events[2].
           | 
           | So yes, while statically aviation is a safe mode of
           | transport, it doesn't help to proclaim that "there's nothing
           | to see here folks, everything is super safe."
           | 
           | It's a miracle nobody died in this door plug incident, a
           | straight-up miracle, and not the result of some grand safety
           | design.
           | 
           | Any attempt to paint it as other than a miracle is just
           | confirmation bias.
           | 
           | 0: https://www.faa.gov/sites/faa.gov/files/SAFO21005_0.pdf
           | 
           | 1: https://ops.group/blog/wp-
           | content/uploads/2023/11/21atsbl04-...
           | 
           | 2: https://sfist.com/2023/08/21/close-calls-on-sfo-runways-
           | are-...
        
             | dmix wrote:
             | I didn't downvote you but it's easy to blame money/greed
             | than the overt encouragememt and endorsement of Boeing's
             | domestic monopoly by a litany of power players both in gov
             | and most importantly, private players directly feeding into
             | gov / other major corporate decision making.
             | 
             | Boeing gets to do what it wants (like bypassing approval
             | processes) _because_ it 's the only player in town. Even
             | after the worst possible QC embarassement, and a massive
             | financial loss few other companies could eat, they still
             | have lots of orders for MAX because of that near monopoly.
             | Largely supported by their OTHET convienient near monopoly
             | in a few markets the US gov also actively encourages, to an
             | even worse degree.
             | 
             | Airbus might be good competition in a narrow sense but only
             | because having one is worse than just two. There should
             | have been market players getting a bunch of capital to
             | compete with them long ago but I guess there are market and
             | regulatory barriers that have made that untenable.
             | 
             | The failures, blatant regulatory capture, and complete lack
             | of real alternatives can be hand waved by reducing it to
             | "money" (to a few) but if anything theres a lot more money
             | to be made if the US had a wide selection of better planes,
             | that aren't grounded for 2yrs, with greater global market
             | demand and old planes getting replaced sooner by much
             | faster by more powerful and enfficent ones.
             | 
             | We as a society (EU too) give space, national defence, and
             | aeronautics basically an unchecked green light for this
             | type of behaviour constantly for so thin rationale about
             | domestic security needs and "but it's complicated and
             | expensive", as if America and the west can't do better.
        
         | jwells89 wrote:
         | > The only viable solution is an independent safety board (paid
         | for out of Boeing profits) that supervises every aspect of
         | design and production at Boeing and its contractors until
         | Boeing learns how to build safe airplanes again.
         | 
         | At this point I'd go further than that. Their ability to
         | manufacture and sell aircraft should be at stake. This needs to
         | be an existential threat for Boeing to take it seriously.
        
         | JCharante wrote:
         | > It's going to be very difficult to avoid the 737 MAX going
         | forward.
         | 
         | Maybe. Delta doesn't currently have any 737 max and they have
         | ordered 100 max 10s, but they aren't approved by the FAA yet
         | and they might change their order. There are still airlines
         | that prefer airbus.
        
       | andjd wrote:
       | Even if this is not a foolproof way to avoid flying on a 737 max,
       | using it will provide a very _visible_ signal to the airlines. If
       | they're losing ticket sales because people don't want to fly on a
       | 737, the airlines will find a way to adapt. Even a marginal
       | change of a few percentage points can shift a route from
       | profitable to unprofitable.
       | 
       | Airbus is already outselling Boeing 2-1. If you're looking at a
       | 5-10 year lead time anyways, they can expand production to eat
       | further into Boeing's share if that's what the airlines demand.
        
         | richwater wrote:
         | > they can expand production
         | 
         | This is MUCH, (and I must reiterate) MUCH harder than it
         | sounds.
        
           | lawlessone wrote:
           | yeah i don't want them to do this and become as bad as Boeing
           | in the process.
        
         | JumpCrisscross wrote:
         | > _using it will provide a very _visible_ signal to the
         | airlines. If they 're losing ticket sales_
         | 
         | They're not. And neither is Boeing. If someone using Kayak
         | isn't willing to contact their elected, they're irrelevant.
         | (Complaints _might_ register if you're a frequent flier who
         | books through the airline and gives written feedback. But I
         | haven't seen evidence of that yet.)
        
           | csours wrote:
           | I bet a few people at Boeing got heartburn about this option
           | being added.
        
             | JumpCrisscross wrote:
             | > _bet a few people at Boeing got heartburn about this
             | option being added_
             | 
             | Sure. They're just not the revenue folks. It's a sign of a
             | degraded brand. Not a _per se_ threat.
        
           | wand3r wrote:
           | > They're not
           | 
           | Boeings stock price is down 18% this month. Sure it's not
           | because of Kayak, this is simply another data point that
           | consumers are wary of Boeing. Boeing is massively fucking up
           | and even though procurement cycles are extremely long, it
           | definitely will have an impact. They are a plane and rocket
           | company that can't build planes or rockets
        
             | JumpCrisscross wrote:
             | > _Boeings stock price is down 18% this month_
             | 
             | Due to the threat of damages from airlines for the cost of
             | groundings and regulation. Not passengers who book through
             | aggregators checking a box.
        
               | simonklitj wrote:
               | I'll quote wand3r back to you:
               | 
               | > Sure it's not because of Kayak
        
               | JumpCrisscross wrote:
               | Neither is it because consumers are wary. They may be.
               | But not in a market-impacting way.
               | 
               | "I won't fly Boeing" is 2024's Kony 2012.
        
               | dingnuts wrote:
               | For that to be true, the whole Boeing fiasco would have
               | to be a hoax, when it instead seems to be becoming a very
               | concerning pattern.
               | 
               | I'm very happy to learn that JetBlue is AirBus-only in
               | this thread. I already am an anxious flyer with a trip
               | coming up in six months and it'd be a lie to say I wasn't
               | considering just driving, even though that's
               | statistically more dangerous, it's a situation where I
               | have more perceived control.
        
               | JumpCrisscross wrote:
               | > _an anxious flyer with a trip coming up in six months
               | and it 'd be a lie to say I wasn't considering just
               | driving_
               | 
               | Sure. But someone travelling once in six months, and
               | actively weighing flying versus driving, isn't a market-
               | moving customer.
               | 
               | I have no doubt _some_ demand destruction is happening.
               | But it's not along frequent fliers. Airlines are
               | clamouring to get their planes recertified because they
               | know they'll be filled.
        
               | stickfigure wrote:
               | > "I won't fly Boeing" is 2024's Kony 2012.
               | 
               | I'm going to call BS on this. Airline passengers are
               | willing to endure all manner of indignities just to shave
               | a few bucks off their ticket price. I'll believe Boeing
               | is in trouble after Spirit and Ryanair go out of
               | business.
               | 
               | On the other hand, Kony is apparently still walking
               | around free. So maybe the comparison is apt.
        
             | gnu8 wrote:
             | > Boeings stock price is down 18% this month.
             | 
             | I hear Warren Buffet's voice over my shoulder telling me
             | "Boeing stock is _on sale_." Boeing is a huge defense
             | contractor that is never going away. Maybe this is the
             | bottom of their current crisis and it is a good time to
             | buy?
        
               | JumpCrisscross wrote:
               | Boeing is an institution. Boeing shareholders are not. If
               | the problems are systemic, the government can put Boeing
               | into bankruptcy to wipe the slate clean.
        
               | sitzkrieg wrote:
               | just like the automobile industry...
        
               | JumpCrisscross wrote:
               | > _like the automobile industry_
               | 
               | Yes. GM and Chrysler went bankrupt [1].
               | 
               | [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_Chapte
               | r_11_re...
               | 
               | [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysler_Chapter_11_r
               | eorgani...
        
               | otherme123 wrote:
               | A stock falling prices doesn't mean it is cheap. Buffett
               | sold J&J just because they changed management, and he
               | probably wasn't confortable with the new bosses. They
               | don't have any other know drawbacks, and if you read
               | investment media each one of them has one theory.
               | 
               | OTOH Buffett has said many times that stocks related with
               | flying are usually a bad investment. And even when he
               | invest, he says that he doesn't know why he keep doing
               | it, as he knows it's a mistake.
               | 
               | And finally, he usually says that he no longer buy "cheap
               | companies to take a last puff of a cigar butt", but
               | "great companies that are going to do great forever".
               | 
               | Now do the aggregate: bad management + air stock +
               | company in decline = not cheap for Buffett. The small
               | investor could cash a rebound if it happens, but a
               | behemot like B&H is not interested.
        
             | S201 wrote:
             | > Boeings stock price is down 18% this month.
             | 
             | Sounds like a good time to buy it then. There's a 0% chance
             | the government would let Boeing go down so it will rebound
             | just like it did with the last 737 issue a few years ago.
        
               | ChadNauseam wrote:
               | Just because the government won't let Boeing go bankrupt
               | doesn't mean Boeing shares will provide the exact same
               | return to investors no matter what. An incident like this
               | should reduce our expectations of how much Boeing will
               | pay investors in dividends/buybacks, so the share price
               | should be lower.
        
               | JumpCrisscross wrote:
               | > _because the government won 't let Boeing go bankrupt_
               | 
               | This keeps being repeated. It isn't true. The government
               | won't let Boeing go under. It's fine letting it go
               | bankrupt.
        
               | krisoft wrote:
               | > it will rebound just like it did with the last 737
               | issue a few years ago
               | 
               | I'm eyeballing the boeing 5Y stock graph and I'm not
               | seeing that rebound. It was around USD 330 when the MCAS
               | issue grounded them. Then it was riding above 300 until
               | the march of 2020. Collapsed there presumably due to
               | Covid and then the highest ever it climbed was last year
               | december with USD 260.
               | 
               | It seems if you bought stock just after their grounding
               | you are very much in the red with that to this day. So
               | where is the rebound?
        
               | S201 wrote:
               | Lion Air 610 crashed October 29, 2018. BA closed at $357
               | that day. It continued to go down to $304 on December
               | 17th 2018. By February 25 2019 it hit a high of $440. A
               | month later Ethiopian Airlines 302 crashed sending BA
               | down again. The larger issue beyond this was covid
               | sending the stock plummeting so it didn't really have a
               | chance to rebound after the affected 737 models were
               | recertified and not grounded anymore.
               | 
               | But you're coming at this from a long term investing
               | point of view. If you're day trading or swing trading
               | (which is likely given it's an individual stock and
               | buying individual stocks for a long term investment is
               | rarely a good idea) then it presents an opportunity. Of
               | course, nothing is a sure bet in the market but seeing
               | something like Boeing down 18% can present a short term
               | opportunity for speculators. Would I put BA in my
               | retirement funds? Absolutely not. Would I try to swing
               | trade BA in a case like this? There's a good chance.
        
         | AndrewKemendo wrote:
         | I'm starting to treat general aviation as though it was 50
         | years ago: Very unsafe and expensive
         | 
         | My expectation is that its going to take a serious accident to
         | get anything to change.
         | 
         | I'm unaware of a highly utilized yet significantly broken
         | system (Tacoma Narrows anyone?) that was able to improve
         | iteratively without catastrophic failure driving improvement
         | (Space Shuttle)
         | 
         | Most human systems don't seem to have the ability to build
         | fourth order forecasting into system design across all
         | individual and integrated components
         | 
         | The idea of a "factor of safety" seems to be just completely
         | missing in most engineering systems because tolerances mean
         | waste and shareholders won't allow waste that doesn't go into
         | their pockets
        
           | plussed_reader wrote:
           | Please qualify 'serious accident' in the wake of 2 crashes
           | and a decompression event forcing landing.
        
             | sixothree wrote:
             | Those two accidents didn't "happen here" and our news is
             | very isolated from the rest of the world. Maybe that's what
             | he means?
        
             | AndrewKemendo wrote:
             | My definition:
             | 
             | Everyone on the plane has to die in a way that the
             | plurality of citizens are horrified enough that they can
             | put public pressure on a public figure powerful enough to
             | force structural change
             | 
             | This is the same idea as the cynical idea of "taking
             | advantage of a crisis"
             | 
             | What I'm not saying here is that this is what should happen
             | or that this is how things should happen in a normative
             | way. I'm simply describing that humans make progress almost
             | exclusively in response to disaster rather than proactively
             | preventing it.
        
               | plussed_reader wrote:
               | So watching the FAA lurch to life after it
               | delegated/abandoned its regulatory mission isn't a
               | horrified response?
               | 
               | Or is that business as usual in your estimation?
        
               | ClumsyPilot wrote:
               | > plurality of citizens are horrified enough that they
               | can put public pressure on a public figure powerful
               | enough to force structural change
               | 
               | So basically only 9/11 or Perl Harbour would qualify.
        
               | AndrewKemendo wrote:
               | Great Depression takes the cake here
               | 
               | Pearl Harbor for sure
               | 
               | Ozone Layer hole and the subsequent Montreal Protocol
               | (banning of CFC) was notable in its speed and efficacy
               | 
               | 9/11 is questionable - the response was bad and counter
               | productive so I'd say no it doesn't count
        
             | patmorgan23 wrote:
             | No one died or was seriously injured in the decompression
             | event. But people die in car wrecks on the highway everyday
        
           | ejb999 wrote:
           | >>I'm starting to treat general aviation as though it was 50
           | years ago: Very unsafe and expensive
           | 
           | 50 years ago civilian aircraft deaths were, on average, 400%
           | higher per year than now. You might want to rethink your
           | comparison; it has never been safer to fly commercial
           | airlines.
           | 
           | IIRC, less than 5 people have died in the USA in commercial
           | airline crashes since 2010.
        
             | Fatnino wrote:
             | I'd be willing to bet it was safer to fly right before the
             | 737 MAX was introduced than right now.
             | 
             | Just a gut feeling.
        
               | alex_lav wrote:
               | Gut feelings are anxieties and biases.
        
               | ejb999 wrote:
               | ...and in this case provably wrong - there have been (in
               | the USA) just 2 deaths, in all of commercial aviation,
               | since the 737-max was introduced in 2015 - thats 2 deaths
               | in 9 years.
               | 
               | In the 9 years before (2014 back to 2006) that there were
               | ~100 deaths, so 5000% higher deaths in the 9 years before
               | the 737Max was introduced - and even that is very, very
               | low historically.
               | 
               | (and for the record, not claiming the 737Max is directly
               | responsible for those lower deaths, just that in general
               | - and across the board - aviation has never been safer
               | than it is now).
        
               | Eisenstein wrote:
               | In 2015 and 2016 there were 0 deliveries of 737 Max's.
               | They were also grounded for a good part of 2019 and you
               | are only counting one country, so your statistics should
               | be revised.
        
             | AndrewKemendo wrote:
             | Maybe a better way to state my position is that, while it
             | is currently the safest time to fly, I expect regression to
             | the mean for airline safety over the next several decades.
             | To such a degree that the increase in fatality risk is
             | going to go up not down
        
           | amarshall wrote:
           | Very unsafe? In the past 14 years there have been 72
           | fatalities involving US Air Carriers, out of around 250
           | million flight hours flown[1]. That's fewer fatalities in 14
           | years than there are US motor vehicle fatalities in a single
           | day (on average).
           | 
           | [1]: https://www.ntsb.gov/safety/StatisticalReviews/Pages/Civ
           | ilAv...
        
             | crmd wrote:
             | Humans are bad at statistics. For example the incident at
             | three mile island in 1979 didn't kill anyone, but the
             | accident crystallized anti-nuclear safety concerns among
             | activists and the general public, and accelerated the
             | decline of efforts to build new reactors.
        
               | nmca wrote:
               | requiring events to kill anyone as evidence of danger of
               | death is a foolish standard, obviously.
               | 
               | People are "bad at statistics" in the sense that the very
               | real evidence coming from, e.g. 3 mile, is hard to bring
               | into statistical models appropriately, not in the sense
               | that there was no evidence there.
        
               | Rallen89 wrote:
               | So what are you basing it on if not deaths/flight hours
        
               | j4yav wrote:
               | Scary news reports per minute
        
               | amarshall wrote:
               | For Three Mile, indeed there is some disagreement on the
               | long-term non-fatal health effects. That any causal
               | effect is unclear does not mean it does not exist, but
               | does suggest that, even if it does, it is likely small.
               | (Admittedly, I have not done a thorough review of the
               | data on this). Nevertheless, your point carries to the
               | true comparison of nuclear power: fossil fuel power and
               | its long-term economic and health impact.
               | 
               | For the airline risk example: US Airline Carriers in past
               | 14 years: 268 serious injuries (same source as above).
               | Depending on the year, that's about the same or less than
               | the number of road traffic related injuries in the US in
               | just one hour (on average)[1].
               | 
               | [1]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/191900/road-
               | traffic-rela...
        
               | Retric wrote:
               | Don't underestimate the direct effects.
               | 
               | Three mile island directly cost well over 1 billion in
               | 1979 dollars (2+B today) just in terms of destroyed
               | assets and initial cleanup costs. The wider impact was
               | even more expensive.
               | 
               | Such a visible failure changed the risk/reward
               | calculations which then hurt the nuclear industry quite a
               | bit. We did keep building US nuclear reactors afterwards,
               | but they were never that profitable in the first place
               | making the industry very sensitive to disruption.
               | 
               | Timeline of US reactor construction: https://en.wikipedia
               | .org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_accident#/me...
        
               | acjohnson55 wrote:
               | Looks like Chernobyl really killed nuclear.
        
               | Retric wrote:
               | Compare active reactors + reactors in construction during
               | three mile island vs where nuclear production stabilized.
               | 
               | Things stabilizing like that is very suspect. It probably
               | has to do with capacity factors and the long lead time,
               | but I wouldn't assume there's no correlation.
        
               | boringg wrote:
               | You have it backwards. Industries that are profitable are
               | subject to disruption.
        
               | Retric wrote:
               | Wrong kind of disruption. If your profit margins are 0.5%
               | then a tiny dip in demand, 2% spike in interest rates, or
               | spike in steel costs etc can be devastating.
               | 
               | If you're a software company with profit margins over 40%
               | then you don't care much about rent etc.
        
               | amarshall wrote:
               | The problem as I see it is that the costs of Three Mile
               | are acute and fairly direct. Whereas fossil fuel power
               | may have even an even bigger cost (from the environmental
               | impact), but as they are slow, chronic, and indirect,
               | they're easily overlooked.
               | 
               | Humans just seem to be disproportionately responsive to
               | rare, acute events.
        
               | seadan83 wrote:
               | To "slow, chronic, and indirect", I would also add
               | "spanning most of a human lifespan." For these kinds of
               | things we often don't realize something is brand new as
               | of our lifetime. Said in another way, if something
               | changes in our life when we are 2, we will tend to think
               | that thing was always that way, even though it is very
               | recent.
               | 
               | An example, forest fires in the West (coast US). They
               | have always been around. So, many say, nothing new here.
               | Yet, we don't quite grok that they are 10x worse than 50
               | years ago [1]. Thus, if you look at it across multiple
               | human lifetimes we can see there is a radical difference.
               | Across one lifetime and it might not seem like it is so
               | different.
               | 
               | [1] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/09/24/climat
               | e/fires... (has several graphs that indicate magnitude
               | more fire & magnitude more burn area)
        
               | Retric wrote:
               | Those differences need to be prices in via Coal taxes or
               | the market doesn't care.
               | 
               | However, the market does care if something has proven to
               | be a risky bet. Meltdowns involve actual money on the
               | line.
        
               | sgustard wrote:
               | This question sort of answers itself, but why skirt the
               | real concern, just add a "Chance of crashing" filter to
               | the flight search? Bonus jobs for data scientists and
               | takes the consumer out of the odds calculation.
        
               | ren_engineer wrote:
               | the impact of violence vs other causes of death is
               | similar, 9/11 killed 3K people and we went to war for 20
               | years and spent trillions as a result. Meanwhile 100K
               | Americans died from opioids last year and the government
               | does nothing
        
           | sokoloff wrote:
           | > I'm starting to treat general aviation as though it was 50
           | years ago: Very unsafe and expensive
           | 
           | General aviation* _is_ expensive and dramatically less safe
           | than commercial aviation. I 'm not sure what that has to do
           | with Kayak's offering model-filtering in their UI (Kayak is
           | selling commercial aviation tickets, which has nothing to do
           | with general aviation).
           | 
           | * - Civil aviation, minus commercial air carrier minus aerial
           | application, pipeline patrol, etc:
           | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_aviation
        
           | cityofdelusion wrote:
           | General aviation is and always has been unsafe, due to the
           | prevalence of single engine aircraft and unskilled pilots.
           | 
           | Did you mean commercial aviation?
        
             | AndrewKemendo wrote:
             | Yeah I did. I'm a private pilot so sometimes i mix em up.
             | Thanks
        
           | patmorgan23 wrote:
           | Commercial aviation is incredibly save. Yes there are
           | accidents, but there are accidents in every human system.
           | Commercial aviation is the safest way to travel even with all
           | the mistakes Boeing has been making lately.
           | 
           | You are far more likely to die in a car crash than in a
           | plane.
        
         | shmatt wrote:
         | Planes get swapped out last minute pretty often, its pretty
         | much the only way to avoid full airline meltdowns every time
         | one flight is 60 minutes late to take off. Hell, there was no
         | huge meltdown in the US once the 737 MAX was grounded, twice.
         | They just swap them out, the system knows how to do it
         | efficiently
         | 
         | An evil (but working) way to bypass this once 737s are flying
         | again, would be to put a different plane with similar layout on
         | every flight, then swap to the 737 on the itinerary the day
         | before
         | 
         | Different plane, different seat, is pretty aggressively baked
         | into TOS
        
           | albert180 wrote:
           | You can book with Airbus-Only carriers though like JetBlue
        
           | ClumsyPilot wrote:
           | " put a different plane with similar layout on every flight,
           | then swap to the 737 on the itinerary the day before"
           | 
           | Question to True Believers in Free market, where is the line
           | between free market and fraud?
        
             | isubkhankulov wrote:
             | Traveling in a different vehicle than originally intended
             | is not fraud. Rental car companies do this all the time.
             | 
             | Large countries without free market capitalism have much
             | worse safety records for flying from a historical
             | perspective. To be clear, i'm referring to Russia and
             | China.
        
               | ClumsyPilot wrote:
               | In Russia they can sell you fake plastic cheese that
               | catches fire, and you still have zero chance of winning a
               | lawsuit. You compensation for wrongdoing or death will be
               | minimal. So it's more capitalist that US in this regard.
               | 
               | https://www.obozrevatel.com/curious/48293-zato-
               | otechestvenny...
               | 
               | If I pay for beef, but you sell me pork, that's fraud. If
               | I pay for organic eggs, but you sell me 'normal' eggs,
               | that's fraud. Eggs are literally the same thing, but you
               | can sell me the wrong airplane?
               | 
               | Why is the market freer for some than for others?
        
               | ChadNauseam wrote:
               | If you buy the airplane, you definitely get the airplane
               | you bought. When you buy a ticket, you aren't buying an
               | airplane, you're buying transportation on whatever
               | airplane is most convenient for the airline
        
             | al_borland wrote:
             | They are selling transportation from location A to location
             | B via an airplane. The specific airplane, assuming it has
             | the features the customer paid for, is more of a
             | technicality.
        
               | depereo wrote:
               | It's different when it's a deliberate conspiracy to
               | mislead consumers, especially when that consumer is
               | choosing services that advertise that a safe vehicle will
               | be used.
               | 
               | If they just stopped showing what plane would be used on
               | the route, maybe they'd get away with using 737-MAX
               | series.
               | 
               | If they say 'it's a 737-800 don't worry about it' and
               | swap in a max every time, or 'fly with us on an airbus'
               | and bring in a boeing death-tube after a purposefully
               | misleading advertisement of a different service...
               | 
               | Terms Of Service only gets you so far. It's not a fraud-
               | dodge.
        
             | recursive wrote:
             | The line would be right at the point where the passenger
             | has a contract that says the vehicle will not be a 737.
        
         | gfiorav wrote:
         | > Airbus is already outselling Boeing 2-1.
         | 
         | What's your source? I looked up the quarterly earnings report,
         | and Boeing reports 528 planes delivered in 2023 vs 488 from
         | Airbus.
         | 
         | Just curious to know if you're talking dollar amount or what?
        
           | kgermino wrote:
           | I don't know the source or veracity but that's deliveries vs
           | new orders.
           | 
           | Planes being delivered this quarter were probably ordered
           | before COVID hit in my understanding so any order differences
           | would take a long time to show up in the delivery numbers
        
           | belter wrote:
           | "Airbus Vs Boeing: Who Won 2023?" -
           | https://simpleflying.com/airbus-vs-boeing-who-won-2023/
           | 
           | "Airbus led in terms of aircraft orders, with Reuters
           | reporting earlier this month that the manufacturer was on
           | track to hit an all-time year-end order record of over 1,800.
           | Boeing's order numbers were a little further behind, with
           | only about 1,200 net orders logged.
           | 
           | When it comes to aircraft delivery targets, Airbus again
           | pulled ahead. According to the latest analysis from Reuters,
           | the Toulouse-based manufacturer is set to come out on top,
           | with over 720 jets projected to be delivered to customers by
           | the end of the year. Boeing also trails in this category,
           | with delivery targets only sitting around 500."
        
           | Zigurd wrote:
           | FT article including charts and numbers: https://www.ft.com/c
           | ontent/c08642f5-3aa3-447b-9028-c1c84b8e1...
        
           | SoftTalker wrote:
           | Airbus is backordered for years. Boeing is the only company
           | that's actually got the capacity to take new orders for
           | larger airliners.
        
           | stevehawk wrote:
           | Orders and deliveries are two different thing. Orders taken
           | today are for years in the future, and deliveries made today
           | were taken as orders years ago. This is true from Cessna up
           | to Boeing.
        
         | HumblyTossed wrote:
         | > If they're losing ticket sales because people don't want to
         | fly on a 737, the airlines will find a way to adapt.
         | 
         | Yep, by suing the shit out of Kayak and anyone else doing this.
        
         | konschubert wrote:
         | I sure hope a new competitor pops up. Monopolies are bad.
        
           | Zigurd wrote:
           | Popping up takes about two decades in commercial aircraft.
        
             | SoftTalker wrote:
             | Lockheed might in theory be able to get back in. Not sure
             | they would want to.
        
             | konschubert wrote:
             | see that's why I am worried
        
           | kylehotchkiss wrote:
           | There's COMAC in China, not sure if that's the competition
           | you're seeking
        
         | ugh123 wrote:
         | >the airlines will find a way to adapt
         | 
         | The industry's go-to method here will probably be lawyers and
         | take-down notices to Kayak, before they adapt.
        
         | belter wrote:
         | "Alaska Airlines Ad - SNL" - https://youtu.be/IZf0bNDWH4s
        
         | jjav wrote:
         | This Kayak filter is not new, it's been there for a few years
         | (maybe they added more models, not sure, but you've been able
         | to filter out the MAX planes since the crashes).
        
       | alexpotato wrote:
       | More Kayak related than Boeing related:
       | 
       | I had often heard that the best price for a flight is on the
       | airline's website vs services like Kayak.
       | 
       | I didn't believe this as I knew some of the travel sites (E.g.
       | Expedia) actually reserve hotel/flights spots etc.
       | 
       | However, recently the cheapest seat I could find for a flight on
       | Kayak was around $3K (business seat to London) whereas the
       | airline site had it for $2.3K.
       | 
       | Has made me now always check the airline site just to be sure
       | given the savings of almost 10%.
        
         | sokoloff wrote:
         | That's almost 25% savings rather than 10%.
        
         | crazygringo wrote:
         | It's a good idea to check both.
         | 
         | But in my experience it's far more often the opposite -- the
         | airline sells tickets at the highest price to people who visit
         | its site because they're less likely to be "shopping around".
         | Already have more loyalty to the airline etc. Business
         | travelers that buy directly. Etc.
         | 
         | While if there's a difference, the aggregator usually is the
         | one selling for less, because people are comparing by price.
         | Especially certain "discount" aggregators.
         | 
         | Also you may not have been comparing exactly the same ticket --
         | e.g. the more expensive Kayak seat might be fully refundable
         | while the airline one isn't. But maybe not -- maybe you did
         | just get lucky!
        
         | toast0 wrote:
         | I had thought Kayak was a metasearch product and searched
         | airline sites on your behalf, but maybe that's changed in
         | significant time since I was involved in online travel.
         | 
         | Either way, search how you like, but you'll almost always get
         | better exception service if you are booked directly with the
         | service provider than if you're booked as a 3rd party customer
         | or a code share. For airfare, costs are usually similar or even
         | a little less expensive if you book directly; for hotels, there
         | are times where the prices are significantly different, but you
         | may be able to get the hotel to match prices if you call them
         | to book directly.
         | 
         | Exceptions would be if you have a high value relationship with
         | a corporate travel agent, or _maybe_ a high level amex?
         | 
         | If you book through an online travel agent and something goes
         | wrong, chances are the provider will send you to the travel
         | agent's customer support and they will be slow and may not be
         | able to do much, because they don't have the right access.
        
       | Night_Thastus wrote:
       | The responses from people here who know very little about how
       | commercial aircraft are designed, built, flown, managed and
       | maintained shows through here. It's a bit disappointing but
       | that's HN for you when the topic isn't computer-related.
       | 
       | No, there is no point in avoiding the MAX, and yes it looks silly
       | trying to.
        
         | appplication wrote:
         | Listen... I don't want to avoid Boeing because I think it's
         | going to crash on me. I want to avoid Boeing because as a
         | consumer I want to inflict maximum economic pain on a company
         | that prioritizes profits over safety.
        
         | albert180 wrote:
         | Ah enlighten us with your broad wisdom. It wasn't Airbus that
         | had multiple problems in the past because of multiple missing
         | bolts in doors, rudders etc., or complete failures of planes
         | out of greed
        
       | JumpCrisscross wrote:
       | This is a "charge me a small premium to feel good" button.
       | Checkbox activism. Couture retailers do this on occasion, too,
       | from what I remember.
        
       | imglorp wrote:
       | Great, until they rename the aircraft like they did for the
       | MAX...
       | 
       | https://onemileatatime.com/boeing-737-8/
        
       | andsoitis wrote:
       | If people think that Airbus aircraft don't have mechanical issues
       | as well, then I've got news for them.
       | 
       | List of accidents and incidents involving the Airbus A320 family:
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_incident...
       | 
       |  _" As of January 2024, 180 aviation accidents and incidents have
       | occurred,[1] including 38 hull loss accidents,[2] and a total of
       | 1505 fatalities in 17 fatal accidents.[3]"_
        
         | nerdjon wrote:
         | No one assumes that Airbus doesn't have mechanical issues, but
         | lets not overlook the next paragraph you decided not to quote
         | for some reason:
         | 
         | "Through 2015, the Airbus A320 family has experienced 0.12
         | fatal hull-loss accidents for every million takeoffs, and 0.26
         | total hull-loss accidents for every million takeoffs; one of
         | the lowest fatality rates of any airliner".
         | 
         | We can't ignore that Boeing has been having a particularly bad
         | few years that are not normal mechanical problems but boiling
         | down to neglectance.
        
           | andsoitis wrote:
           | > you decided not to quote for some reason
           | 
           | No nefarious reason. Just didn't think it is worth getting
           | into the relative risk debate, because that tends to go
           | sideways.
        
           | rootusrootus wrote:
           | > one of the lowest fatality rates of any airliner
           | 
           | "one of the lowest"
           | 
           | How does it compare to the 737? If we're using statistics to
           | inform our choice of airliner, then it's worth knowing.
        
       | ducklingquack wrote:
       | This will have zero effect. First of all, this is a blip that
       | will eventually disappear from your average passenger's radar
       | before the summer travel period unless Boeing is unable to
       | satisfy FAA's requirements in the coming months. Secondly, I
       | believe people are mostly concerned with pricing and
       | availability, not the aircraft type.
        
       | electroly wrote:
       | Forget the 737 MAX--this lets you exclude regional jets! Never
       | see a CRJ-200 again! The worst passenger jet in the sky.
        
         | kalupa wrote:
         | great way to get a nice close up view of the mountains when
         | flying Vancouver, BC to Seattle, though!
        
         | sokoloff wrote:
         | I feel like the Embraer 175 and 195 and the little Fokker jets
         | can compete for that title.
        
           | rangestransform wrote:
           | i actually quite liked the porter E175E2 i flew on, CRJs can
           | go eat shit for sure though
        
           | mortenjorck wrote:
           | The ERJ-140 would like a word. The three-seat-wide single
           | cabin is so claustrophobic, it gave me a panic attack once,
           | resulting in years of flight anxiety I had not had
           | previously.
        
           | zymhan wrote:
           | Are you in Australia? I'd love to know where else they're
           | still operating Fokkers.
        
             | sokoloff wrote:
             | KLM City Hopper was flying Fokkers (which were horrendous
             | as a pax) not that long ago. Looking online, it seems like
             | they've retired the last of them now.
        
       | Brian_K_White wrote:
       | What a great proof of the value of 3rd parties. What airline
       | would EVER provide such a feature?
        
         | pb7 wrote:
         | Pretty much every airline I've ever seen provides the aircraft
         | type right in the flight list view. The reason they don't let
         | you filter by it is because aircraft types can change before
         | the actual flight so it would be an odd feature to provide
         | given there is zero guarantee you will get that aircraft.
        
       | willmadden wrote:
       | Buy a safer car, exercise, quit drinking, and improve your diet.
       | These actions will have a far bigger impact on your lifespan than
       | excluding 737 Max from your Kayak search results.
       | 
       | That said, Boeing needs a shake-up. They have become a little too
       | cozy with the bureaucratic/political class and their benefactors.
        
       | PLenz wrote:
       | If it's Boeing, I ain't going
        
       | caseysoftware wrote:
       | How sad is it that the state of the airline industry - from
       | manufacturing to maintenance to actually flying - triggers a need
       | for something like this?
       | 
       | In Foundation, the lack of the ability to fix things signaled the
       | impending end of the Empire. We need to build a library..
        
         | albert180 wrote:
         | But have you thought about the shareholders when they need to
         | spend money on QA instead of share buybacks?
        
           | caseysoftware wrote:
           | Oh, good call. I didn't consider this quarter's profits. My
           | apologies.
        
       | j-a-a-p wrote:
       | I thought it would make sense to search how large Kayak actually
       | is. It appears the there is also a pretty decent Kayak market of
       | 500 million. I thought you might want to know:
       | 
       | https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/kayak-market-2023-2030-overvi...
       | 
       | More on topic, as I predicted here 12 days ago that Kayak will be
       | filtering on Boeing (I guessed just a max-out), I will do another
       | prediction: Boeing will fold before the US elections, which will
       | lead to the conclusion that a single loose bolt has led to the
       | election of Trump.
        
       | jnsie wrote:
       | I just want to be able to exclude "basic economy" (and its
       | synonyms). I don't want premium economy, I don't want basic
       | economy. I just want economy. My understanding is that it's not a
       | different cabin so isn't possible to filter for most airlines but
       | it's extremely frustrating to track prices on google flights et
       | Al and receive notifications of price drops only to find that
       | they are basic economy.
        
       | rootusrootus wrote:
       | Handy for the paranoid. But meaningless in practical terms. The
       | absolute fundamental reality for airlines is that ticket price
       | wins every time. Without exception. It's the quintessential
       | example of a race to the bottom.
       | 
       | If this -did- have a measurable effect, the airlines would drop
       | the price of a ticket by 5 or 10 bucks if you were willing to
       | take the 737MAX flight. Boom, now that flight is full.
        
       | crubier wrote:
       | I'm old enough to remember "if it's not Boeing I'm not going"
        
       | throwitaway222 wrote:
       | The issue is probably more pressing for "new" aircraft than 737
       | max. If Boeing makes a different plane, are you less worried
       | about those same people putting those bolts on a different plane?
        
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       (page generated 2024-01-22 23:01 UTC)