5 ms·

It is still stupid to get into a plane that is vastly less safe than others for no good reason.

alkonaut 7y ago
The reason is usually that it’s several hundred dollars more expensive to take the second cheapest flight. Or requires a stopover. And if you aren’t aware of what plane is operating your flight then you risk having to cancel very late and re-book a likely much more expensive ticket.
- DuskStar 7y ago
  > And if you aren’t aware of what plane is operating your flight then you risk having to cancel very late and re-book a likely much more expensive ticket. I always try to select my seats at time of booking, which requires knowing the model+revision of the plane. Is that weird?
  - gav 7y ago
    There’s no guarantee that the model of plane that you’ve booked on is the one that’s at the gate. There’s been plenty of times my plane has been changed out at the last minute due to weather or mechanical issues.
  - alkonaut 7y ago
    Not at all. But that’s based on a (good) guess about what plane will eventually be scheduled for the flight. Especially if it’s far in advance it’s more likely to change. Also, because it’s likely to change, carriers that use both 737-800 and 737-MAX8 (A lot of them if not most of them) likely use similar seat layouts for both, so last minute plane switches aren’t a problem even if everyone has a seat booked. So they could swap a 737-800 for a 737-MAX8 last second and you’d only know when you board it and spot the split winglets.
    - jen20 7y ago
      Boarding is not the first opportunity to know this - the flight plan has the tail number on it. Apps such as Flighty (and I'm sure others, possibly even those without subscription) will provide access to those well ahead of time and notify you about changes. It is unfortunate that "changing the plane type" is not grounds to change your ticket however.
      - alkonaut 7y ago
        If there is a late change of plane (final hours before flight is pretty common) due to technical problems or whatever, then that info may be accessible but it’s not very useful. It is useful for changing plans if the plane changes days or weeks before departure, but as you say it’s not ground for cancelling or changing your ticket, so buying new tickets every time one sees a 7M8 pop up is going to be really expensive with airlines that have many of them. I guess the better idea then is to avoid those airlines entirely, but that might not be possible at all destinations.
DuskStar 7y ago
It's only vastly less safe as a multiple to the other options, and not unsafe on an absolute basis. Similarly, driving NYC to LA is vastly less safe than flying from NYC to LA commercially. That doesn't make the roads unsafe.
- mrtksn 7y ago
  >driving NYC to LA is vastly less safe than flying from NYC to LA commercially How so? Is flying still safer than driving a well-maintained car and observer safety best practices? Or is it safer in regards to grand scheme of things and you might be one of those drivers that be drunk driving? Well, you can not drink and drive, it's not really random from a personal perspective.
  - jonas21 7y ago
    Commercial air travel is about 110x safer in terms of fatalities per passenger mile than driving or riding in a car [1]. In 2014, incidents where at least one driver had a detectable amount of alcohol in their system accounted for 36% of traffic fatalities in the US. Even if you exclude those fatalities entirely, driving is still 70x more dangerous. Now of course you can claim that you're just a better driver than the average person (like 93% of Americans do [3]), but no matter how good of a driver you are, I doubt if it would come anywhere close to making up for a 70x difference. [1] http://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/~ipsavage/436-appendix.pdf http://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/~ipsavage/436-appendix.... [2] https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/Publication/812231 https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/Publication/8122... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_superiority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_superiority
    - mrtksn 7y ago
      Sure, since the speed of the plane is about 8 times higher than an automobile cruise speed, obviously deaths per mile will be lower as each successful trip puts a lot of death-free miles in the books. Also, these statistics are about commercial flights on perfect routes v.s. all the drivers on all kind of roads. I looked a bit and it seems like the accidents on the highways are significantly less likely and the deaths rete per crash is lower too. A fairer comparison would be small chartered jets v.s. Uber, commercial coach services v.s. commercial flights on similar routes and so on. I don't know even if it's a meaningful comparison anyway, on long journeys or on short ones they do not overlap.

The reason is usually that it’s several hundred dollars more expensive to take the second cheapest flight. Or requires a stopover. And if you aren’t aware of what plane is operating your flight then you risk having to cancel very late and re-book a likely much more expensive ticket.

DuskStar 7y ago
> And if you aren’t aware of what plane is operating your flight then you risk having to cancel very late and re-book a likely much more expensive ticket. I always try to select my seats at time of booking, which requires knowing the model+revision of the plane. Is that weird?
- gav 7y ago
  There’s no guarantee that the model of plane that you’ve booked on is the one that’s at the gate. There’s been plenty of times my plane has been changed out at the last minute due to weather or mechanical issues.
- alkonaut 7y ago
  Not at all. But that’s based on a (good) guess about what plane will eventually be scheduled for the flight. Especially if it’s far in advance it’s more likely to change. Also, because it’s likely to change, carriers that use both 737-800 and 737-MAX8 (A lot of them if not most of them) likely use similar seat layouts for both, so last minute plane switches aren’t a problem even if everyone has a seat booked. So they could swap a 737-800 for a 737-MAX8 last second and you’d only know when you board it and spot the split winglets.
  - jen20 7y ago
    Boarding is not the first opportunity to know this - the flight plan has the tail number on it. Apps such as Flighty (and I'm sure others, possibly even those without subscription) will provide access to those well ahead of time and notify you about changes. It is unfortunate that "changing the plane type" is not grounds to change your ticket however.
    - alkonaut 7y ago
      If there is a late change of plane (final hours before flight is pretty common) due to technical problems or whatever, then that info may be accessible but it’s not very useful. It is useful for changing plans if the plane changes days or weeks before departure, but as you say it’s not ground for cancelling or changing your ticket, so buying new tickets every time one sees a 7M8 pop up is going to be really expensive with airlines that have many of them. I guess the better idea then is to avoid those airlines entirely, but that might not be possible at all destinations.

DuskStar 7y ago

It's only vastly less safe as a multiple to the other options, and not unsafe on an absolute basis. Similarly, driving NYC to LA is vastly less safe than flying from NYC to LA commercially. That doesn't make the roads unsafe.

mrtksn 7y ago
>driving NYC to LA is vastly less safe than flying from NYC to LA commercially How so? Is flying still safer than driving a well-maintained car and observer safety best practices? Or is it safer in regards to grand scheme of things and you might be one of those drivers that be drunk driving? Well, you can not drink and drive, it's not really random from a personal perspective.
- jonas21 7y ago
  Commercial air travel is about 110x safer in terms of fatalities per passenger mile than driving or riding in a car [1]. In 2014, incidents where at least one driver had a detectable amount of alcohol in their system accounted for 36% of traffic fatalities in the US. Even if you exclude those fatalities entirely, driving is still 70x more dangerous. Now of course you can claim that you're just a better driver than the average person (like 93% of Americans do [3]), but no matter how good of a driver you are, I doubt if it would come anywhere close to making up for a 70x difference. [1] http://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/~ipsavage/436-appendix.pdf http://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/~ipsavage/436-appendix.... [2] https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/Publication/812231 https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/Publication/8122... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_superiority https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_superiority
  - mrtksn 7y ago
    Sure, since the speed of the plane is about 8 times higher than an automobile cruise speed, obviously deaths per mile will be lower as each successful trip puts a lot of death-free miles in the books. Also, these statistics are about commercial flights on perfect routes v.s. all the drivers on all kind of roads. I looked a bit and it seems like the accidents on the highways are significantly less likely and the deaths rete per crash is lower too. A fairer comparison would be small chartered jets v.s. Uber, commercial coach services v.s. commercial flights on similar routes and so on. I don't know even if it's a meaningful comparison anyway, on long journeys or on short ones they do not overlap.