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Boeing 737 Max to Resume Flying U.S. Passengers Today
- 882661830 6y agoI’ve noticed both Google flights and Southwest both have removed the generation number from the plane description. Now it just lists 737, without -300/700/800/Max etc
- Dirlewanger 6y agoI booked Southwest recently and it said Boeing 737-800 for me.
- 882661830 6y agoIs that after you’ve paid ? Trying the booking workflow on mobile now I don’t see it anywhere
- kube-system 6y agoOn desktop you can click the flight number and the pop up shows the scheduled aircraft model.
- Dirlewanger 6y agoNo, when I was checking out I think. I knew before I paid what the plane was.
- jasoncartwright 6y agoThis doesn't appear to be true? https://ibb.co/sWTWsnb https://ibb.co/sWTWsnb
- 882661830 6y agoMaybe depends on what data the airline provides or desktop vs mobile https://ibb.co/3pdMY7m https://ibb.co/3pdMY7m
- fireattack 6y agoDo you have a "before" screenshot to show it used to show this information with mobile? I didn't remember seeing it on mobile before, but again I don't really use it frequently.
- dotancohen 6y agoThis is deceptive, intentionally. No matter if the vehicle is safe to fly or not, some people may not feel comfortable flying on one. The only justification of overturning 80+ years of airliner industry precedent in eliminating the specific vehicle type from the descriptions is to deceive.
- edoceo 6y agoOr maybe it's just some designer fiddling with screen real-estate and negative space.
- nipponese 6y agoOr maybe it was some engineer making the point that the data wasn’t accurate or reliable in the first place.
- edoceo 6y agoWhat if both were true? And designers and engineers worked together to clean the UI from possibly wrong and noisy information in the results brief? Teamwork makes the dream-work.
- heavenlyblue 6y agoThe data was wrong all along but the management didn’t want to remove it until they finally realised that it’s creating a negative revenue pressure.
- tyingq 6y agoI don't think anything changed. Is there some compelling evidence that it did? Here's the a/c type on southwest.com desktop, right now: https://imgur.com/a/B6PxsbB https://imgur.com/a/B6PxsbB I don't see it on mobile, but I don't think it's ever been there.
- powvans 6y agoYou can avoid the airlines that fly the Max altogether. Unfortunately it looks like Delta is the only major US airline that does not own any. Spirit and JetBlue also do not have any. United, American, and Southwest all operate the Max. I would avoid those airlines for routes that could be serviced by the Max.
- exhilaration 6y agoIs there a listing or database somewhere where I could look up other airlines? There's a few more regional and discount airlines I'm curious about.
- tyingq 6y agoWikipedia has a list of MAX orders and deliveries by airline. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Boeing_737_MAX_orders_and_deliveries https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Boeing_737_MAX_order...
- rawgabbit 6y agoHow to ID a MAX. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-identify-boeing-737-max-louis-duc-nguyen https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-identify-boeing-737-max-l...
- tyingq 6y agoOdd that it doesn't mention the sawtooth pattern on the rear of the engine cowling, or the flat bottom shape of the engine as you look into the intake, versus the normal round shape for non-max/leap engines. Either of those is easy to spot from far away.
- AnimalMuppet 6y agoI don't think that's right. Didn't several generations of 737 before MAX have that flattened engine bottom? I think I've been seeing it for considerably longer than MAX has been around.
- tyingq 6y agoI don't think Southwest removed anything. From what I recall, it's always been on the flight status pages for both mobile and desktop. For the flight shopping pages, it's always been on desktop, but never on mobile.
- slumdev 6y agoYou can look up the plane by its tail number. But you're still at the mercy of the airline. If they do an equipment swap, you're not entitled to change or cancel. You'd only have the option not to fly, forfeiting the cost of your ticket. As someone else in this thread said, just fly Delta (domestically).
- tyingq 6y agoSouthwest doesn't have change fees, so long as you cancel at least 10 minutes before the scheduled flight time. Assuming they had all their aircraft flying, the MAX aircraft are about 5 percent of the fleet.
- slumdev 6y agoSouthwest's service is pretty thin in some places. Highly likely you won't get a flight the same day if you cancel to avoid the 737-HCF. Then, you have to explain to Great Aunt Greta why you won't be at Thanksgiving. Better just to avoid Southwest.
- jerbs 6y agoYour second line is simply not true. Both American [1] and United [2] have committed to waiving change fees if you don't want to fly on a 737 MAX. Southwest is farther away from bringing the MAX back into service, so they have less detail on their site [3], but it sounds like they'll do something similar. [1] https://www.aa.com/i18n/travel-info/737-MAX-return-to-service.jsp https://www.aa.com/i18n/travel-info/737-MAX-return-to-servic... [2] https://www.united.com/ual/en/us/fly/travel/inflight/aircraft/737-MAX.html https://www.united.com/ual/en/us/fly/travel/inflight/aircraf... (under "What if I don't want to fly on a MAX?") [3] https://www.southwest.com/737-max/#return-to-service-plan https://www.southwest.com/737-max/#return-to-service-plan (under "What are Customers' options if they don't want to fly on a 737 MAX?")
- slumdev 6y agoA change fee waiver is a very, very small gesture. But you're right, at least it's something.
- laydn 6y agoSo the findings in this Senate report are just going to be ignored? ( https://www.theverge.com/2020/12/18/22189609/faa-boeing-737-max-senate-report-coverup-tests-whistleblowers https://www.theverge.com/2020/12/18/22189609/faa-boeing-737-... ) To quote: ""Boeing “inappropriately coached” some FAA test pilots to reach a desired outcome during the re-certification tests, and some were even performed on simulators that weren’t equipped to re-create the same conditions as the crashes. ""
- raverbashing 6y agoEdit: I was incorrect But not only the FAA recertified the plane and the MCAS cutoff seems to be more robust regardless > So the findings in this Senate report are just going to be ignored? They certainly are relevant for litigations and judgements against Boeing relating to the accidents.
- agency 6y agoDid you even look at the link? The Senate report in question concerns the recertifications.
- raverbashing 6y agoYou're right, my bad. I had understood it differently from reading this elsewhere
- Pfhreak 6y agoWhat are a few hundred lives compared to millions of dollars? /s Boeing cares, first and foremost, about the bottom line. It doesn't surprise me that money beats safety for them.
- mentos 6y ago“In one particular FAA test performed on the right simulator, a whistleblower says Boeing officials were present and told the test pilots when to hit the switch that killed MCAS. When these actions were reported by whistleblowers, they were often ignored or retaliated against, according to the report.” Boeing can’t seem to help itself from disaster
- rossdavidh 6y agoWell, I mean, we have a critical shortage of airline flight capacity right now, so of course they had to. Oh, wait...
- josefx 6y agoThe 737 Max does not provide additional capacity, it provides cheaper capacity. It has modern engines that use less fuel and wouldn't fit on the existing lineup. Right now the ability to cut costs at the cost of a few hundred passengers a year is probably the kind of news the airlines need to keep investors happy.
- Beldin 6y ago> It [737 Max] has modern engines that [...] wouldn't fit on the existing lineup. That's the problem in a nutshell. If I had an actual choice, I'd choose to fly in a plane whose airframe was designed around the engines its using.
- breitling 6y agoIn a few months time, it will be interesting to see the data showing the differences in bookings for 800-Max vs other planes. I imagine many people will try to avoid the Max and book other planes.
- ygra 6y agoI'd imagine many people just don't know or don't care what plane they fly on. The number of enthusiasts who want to fly (or not fly) on a particular plane model isn't that large.
- mannykannot 6y agoNot everyone feels that the Maxes will still be significantly more risky than the alternatives. I suspect that risks from other factors dominate, and few people choose not to fly if the weather is bad. It would probably be more useful to know how long the flight crew has been on duty, or where the airline gets its maintenance done, than what airplane is being used.
- jillesvangurp 6y agoI doubt this will be a factor. Some people will care but most people will continue to be unable to tell the difference between an Airbus and a Boeing and generally not have type numbers, incident history, etc. memorized. Most of the bad press is already ancient history for the general public. Of course, there's not a lot of flying happening currently anyway. So, good moment to do this. By the time traffic picks up again, the fixed model will have months/years incident free flights behind it. But I agree, it will be interesting of the general public cares at all for anything else than $/flight, which is the reason why cattle class is a thing: people are happy to sacrifice comfort, dignity, etc. to save a few dollars on a flight.
- ubermonkey 6y agoThe problem is that carriers don't "marry" equipment to itineraries at booking. You could book something that was theoretically planned for one variant of plane, and then delays or mechanical issues happen and end up on something else.
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- amyjess 6y ago...and once the pandemic is over and I start flying again, I'm going to fly exclusively with Spirit from now on.
- franczesko 6y agoOut of curiosity - was anyone from Boeing held accountable for the decisions that led to the 737 max catastrophes?
- tyingq 6y agoThey fired the CEO: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Muilenburg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Muilenburg A "criminal probe/investigation" is supposedly ongoing. I haven't heard of anyone being charged.
- briandear 6y agoOne of my best friends is a 20,000 hour 737 captain (and check pilot) at United and spent the past several weeks getting training on the new Max. He says the primary win for the new MCAS is that there is no longer a single point of failure (in the prior version the system only took data from a single AOA source even though there were two AOA indicators already on the airplane. At least on the United versions of the plane.) The new version uses both AOA sources. Additionally, the MCAS system now has limits on the amount of “correction” to prevent extreme compensation by the system. My friend is just a single anecdote, but I trust pilots highly experienced in type more than articles written by journalists who don’t actually fly or even bureaucrats who have never spent significant time with the airplane in real world conditions. If mainline airline pilots are confident in the system, so am I. Even with the old system, no US (or major European) airline ever had problems with the old system because European and US have far higher pilot experience requirements to fly in the bigger jets. For example, at United, you need at least 3000 hours before even being allowed in the right seat of a 737. For RJs, you have to have 1500 hours before being allowed in the right seat. That is a significantly higher standard than Ethiopian which has right seaters with less than 250 total flight hours. At Ethiopian or Lion Air 5000 hours is an “experienced” captain. At United that would be a rookie first officer. I don’t know anyone at Southwest, but they have very high entry level minimums as well. The first 737 Max had flaws, no question, but statistically, why didn’t any American carriers have any crashes despite flying an order of magnitude more hours in the airplane compared to Ethiopian or Lion Air? The US and European airlines are simply far more rigorous in training and pilot requirements as well as maintenance requirements. Fixing the Max is not addressing the bigger, far more significant issue of pilot training in non-US/Euro airlines. I have almost 1000 hours and am commercial and instrument rated but I am barely qualified to fly FedEx feeder Cessna 208s or perhaps right seat in a King Air. If I were outside the US/Canada/Europe, I could be flying 737s with 150 passengers. We still have the significant issue of “fake pilots” [1] and all sorts of chicanery that has yet to be addressed. Despite flaws inherent in any government agency, the fact is the FAA has made American skies among the very safest in the world, at least according to the data. If US and Euro airlines start crashing, then we can revisit that theory. [1] https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/680358-why-has-eu-never-banned-indian-airlines-flown-by-fake-pilots https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/680358-why-has-eu-never-ban...
- LatteLazy 6y agoIn fairness, every pilot who's even mediocre should be well aware of MCAS, its issues and how to turn it off. The real question is what else have Boeing half arsed?
- AnimalMuppet 6y agoThe investigation turned up a few non-MCAS-related things, and required that they be fixed. I don't recall specifics - something about a wire that could become damaged?
- LatteLazy 6y agoIt appears they need to change which wires are bundled together to avoid an "unlikely" crossed circuit issue. I wonder if that is done or if pilots have been warned that "in rare occasions button X can activate system Y and if that happens you must do Z". Or maybe they'll wait to see if there is another crash before highlighting it. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/11/business/boeing-737-max-wire-bundles.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/11/business/boeing-737-max-w...
- zeristor 6y agoHow many total 737 MAX MCAS events occurred? If two ended in crashes, I’d expect there to be twenty or so similar events that the pilots were able resolve. Or was it a case that there were only two flights with faulty pitot tubes that ended in crashes. I not a pilot, so I may have glosses over details, apologies in advance.
- topspin 6y agoI haven't seen a definitive count anywhere. It is certain that not all flights involving the MCAS problem led to a crash. The LionAir crash flight was preceded by a flight were the pilots first experienced the MCAS problem due to the failed pitot on the plane; they disabled the trim system and completed the fight manually. It was the subsequent flight the actually crashed.
- dirtyid 6y agoWhat is the situation with aviation safety in general as they return more planes from storage?