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Ryanair, which is by far the world's safest airline, has ordered 210 of the Max, having recently increased their order by 75 aircraft. So there is confidence in

Ryanair, which is by far the world's safest airline, has ordered 210 of the Max, having recently increased their order by 75 aircraft. So there is confidence in the aircraft in industry, at least.

dashdot 6y ago
Some call it confidence, I call it bargain shopping.
brnt 6y ago
Ryanair buying thing is no sign of confidence, but a sign of O'Leary smelling a bargain (and of course, the MAX qualifies at this point). He's counting on this being worked out one way or another, not necessarily the MAX being actually a good plane.
tonyedgecombe 6y ago
which is by far the world's safest airline Not even on the list: https://www.airlineratings.com/news/worlds-safest-airlines-named-for-2019/ https://www.airlineratings.com/news/worlds-safest-airlines-n...
- overscore 6y ago
  Ryanair has a significantly better safety record than all of the "safest" airlines on that list, and have never had a fatality or serious accident, which is more than most of them. It's own safety rating system puts Ryanair at the same "7 stars", but their history speaks for itself. https://www.airlineratings.com/ratings/ryanair/ https://www.airlineratings.com/ratings/ryanair/
  - bjarneh 6y ago
    > Ryanair has a significantly better safety record than all of the "safest" airlines on that list Qantas has not had a fatality since 1951 (Ryanair was founded in 1984); so that cannot possibly be true.
    - overscore 6y ago
      Qantas has had major accidents and incidents in the the time since Ryanair's founding, including Qantas Flight 32 in 2008. There's nothing like that (or Flight 32) in Ryanair's history, despite having far more aircraft and flights than Qantas. The only competitor in terms of safety record is Hawaiian, which also has a stellar history, but is an order of magnitude smaller.
      - bjarneh 6y ago
        You may very well be correct; and Ryanair might be a very safe airline (despite not being listed high on the safety rankings). Although that does beg the question of why they are not, but that's not really the point IMO. But the Qantas Flight 32 is the point, this is exactly what this story is about. Confidence in an aircraft. Qantas Flight 32 was an Airbus A-380, which is exactly what you would expect to hear anytime you heard about serious accidents or plane crash; the name "Airbus". Boeing used to be the safe over engineered plane, while Airbus was a French/German/Spanish hybrid where the jokes about French cars, carried over to the planes, which led to joke slogans like this: "Take a chance with Air France" Boeing was synonymous with safety; but now they seem insistent on destroying their own legacy with that MAX/8 plane.
        La1n 6y ago
        >Airbus A-380, which is exactly what you would expect to hear anytime you heard about serious accidents or plane crash; the name "Airbus" This [1] seems to disagree with you, searching for Boeing and airbus, there seem to be many more Boeing incidents than Airbus. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_incidents_involving_commercial_aircraft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_incident...
        margalabargala 6y ago
        That page list every incident of any kind, including things like bird strikes and hijackings, which aren't think I would expect to affect one brand more than the other. Crucially, this also doesn't normalize to the quantities of planes flying. If Boeing makes up 70% of the global fleet, but only 65% of incidents, then that would mean they were safer rather than not. Airbus has delivered more planes than Boeing in the last two years but I'm having trouble finding statistics on overall fleet makeups going back further than that.
staticelf 6y ago
I thought Qantas was the worlds safest airline by far.
SimplyUnknown 6y ago
Another explanation: Ryanair is a budget airline and was able to buy more 737-Maxes at a very low price, making their already cheap tickets even cheaper, allowing them to increase profit margins and cementing their status as the cheapest airline around even if that comes at the expense of safety. Either way, both explanations are speculation and we'll have to see how that turns out.
- overscore 6y ago
  Ryanair do have a history of taking advantage of industry slumps, having put in an order for 100 aircraft with Boeing in January 2002 when aviation had nearly collapsed. That said, they take safety extraordinarily seriously and would not risk their reputation if they had doubts about the Max.
onion2k 6y ago
So there is confidence in the aircraft in industry, at least. It's also possible that Ryanair believes that a crash wouldn't damage their business significantly. Ryanair competes almost entirely on price, to the point of removing literally everything they can in order to stay the cheapest option. A decade ago they considered removing the seats from their planes (https://www.theguardian.com/money/2010/jul/01/stand-up-for-ryanair https://www.theguardian.com/money/2010/jul/01/stand-up-for-r...) as well as plans for things like making passengers pay to use the bathrooms. More recently Ryanair refused to remove middle seats in order to help stop the spread of Corona virus. I would be very reluctant to believe Ryanair believe in the 737 Max for any reason besides cost. Safety is not a priority for them beyond meeting the absolute minimum requirements necessary to fly.
- algesten 6y ago
  Ryanair is pretty good on safety (my brother is a pilot with them). However they do absolutely everything to push costs down. MAX is a significant saving in fuel, which is one of the biggest costs.
  - rutthenut 6y ago
    I also expect Ryanair got a hefty discount on increasing their orders for the max
  - Majestic121 6y ago
    No offense, but your brother being a pilot with them seems irrelevant on whether they are 'pretty good with safety' or not. Working there is a pretty big bias
    - avh02 6y ago
      I dunno, there's some jobs you see from the inside you think "wow, this is a disaster" but from the outside it looks fine because that's what the company projects. (Anecdotally, a friend of mine gets horror stories from his brother, who's a mechanic with a very large airline)
    - 6y ago
bjarneh 6y ago
> which is by far the world's safest airline https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/06/what-are-the-safest-airlines-in-the-world-here-are-the-top-20.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/06/what-are-the-safest-airlines... It seems Ryanair does not make it to the top 20 in terms of being the safest airline. Ryanair comes in at the 7th place for the low-cost-airline safety. It could mean that Boeing are handing out huge discounts, or that Ryanair bets on these planes never making it to market, forcing Boeing to give them a killer deal on a replacement plane etc. The thing is that most passengers that have read any of the articles about this plane, will never set foot on one of them.
- overscore 6y ago
  In one website's subjective ranking. However, their safety record speaks for itself - no fatalities or serious accidents. None of the airlines in the top ten listing in that article come close.
  - bjarneh 6y ago
    > In one website's subjective ranking. It may be somewhat subjective, and it is probably hard to compare the many airlines that have had no fatalities or serious accidents (reported at least) in the last 30-40 years; like Ryanair has. But you said Ryanair were the safest of any airline (by far), which seems strange as there are many airlines with similar safety records as Ryanair. Why should they rank above everyone else? In the end the customers will decide, but hopefully we can avoid another load of customers hitting the ground in MAX (or 8) crash.
    - overscore 6y ago
      There aren't that many airlines with no fatal or serious accidents or incidents in the last 30-40 years. For example, by that measure, the number 1 on the list linked above, Qantas, doesn't qualify, having had two major incidents in the last two decades.
      - bjarneh 6y ago
StreamBright 6y ago
I do not know why this is getting downvoted. Simply stating facts. My confidence in Ryanair is decreasing. The only problem that they got routes that no other European airline has and I am forced to fly with them time to time even though I try to avoid them like plague. If there are multiple flights from A to B and there is Ryanair in the mix, the price difference is usually negligible (5 - 10 EUR) and I am always willing to pay that little extra to an other airline which has a decent CEO (not like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_O%27Leary_(businessman) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_O%27Leary_(businessman...).
ulfw 6y ago
Or they ordered it because they got a great deal and because they're only running 737s and nothing else.

Ryanair, which is by far the world's safest airline, has ordered 210 of the Max, having recently increased their order by 75 aircraft. So there is confidence in the aircraft in industry, at least.

dashdot 6y ago

Some call it confidence, I call it bargain shopping.

brnt 6y ago

Ryanair buying thing is no sign of confidence, but a sign of O'Leary smelling a bargain (and of course, the MAX qualifies at this point). He's counting on this being worked out one way or another, not necessarily the MAX being actually a good plane.

tonyedgecombe 6y ago

which is by far the world's safest airline Not even on the list: https://www.airlineratings.com/news/worlds-safest-airlines-named-for-2019/ https://www.airlineratings.com/news/worlds-safest-airlines-n...

overscore 6y ago
Ryanair has a significantly better safety record than all of the "safest" airlines on that list, and have never had a fatality or serious accident, which is more than most of them. It's own safety rating system puts Ryanair at the same "7 stars", but their history speaks for itself. https://www.airlineratings.com/ratings/ryanair/ https://www.airlineratings.com/ratings/ryanair/
- bjarneh 6y ago
  > Ryanair has a significantly better safety record than all of the "safest" airlines on that list Qantas has not had a fatality since 1951 (Ryanair was founded in 1984); so that cannot possibly be true.
  - overscore 6y ago
    Qantas has had major accidents and incidents in the the time since Ryanair's founding, including Qantas Flight 32 in 2008. There's nothing like that (or Flight 32) in Ryanair's history, despite having far more aircraft and flights than Qantas. The only competitor in terms of safety record is Hawaiian, which also has a stellar history, but is an order of magnitude smaller.
    - bjarneh 6y ago
      You may very well be correct; and Ryanair might be a very safe airline (despite not being listed high on the safety rankings). Although that does beg the question of why they are not, but that's not really the point IMO. But the Qantas Flight 32 is the point, this is exactly what this story is about. Confidence in an aircraft. Qantas Flight 32 was an Airbus A-380, which is exactly what you would expect to hear anytime you heard about serious accidents or plane crash; the name "Airbus". Boeing used to be the safe over engineered plane, while Airbus was a French/German/Spanish hybrid where the jokes about French cars, carried over to the planes, which led to joke slogans like this: "Take a chance with Air France" Boeing was synonymous with safety; but now they seem insistent on destroying their own legacy with that MAX/8 plane.
      - La1n 6y ago
        >Airbus A-380, which is exactly what you would expect to hear anytime you heard about serious accidents or plane crash; the name "Airbus" This [1] seems to disagree with you, searching for Boeing and airbus, there seem to be many more Boeing incidents than Airbus. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_incidents_involving_commercial_aircraft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_incident...
        margalabargala 6y ago
        That page list every incident of any kind, including things like bird strikes and hijackings, which aren't think I would expect to affect one brand more than the other. Crucially, this also doesn't normalize to the quantities of planes flying. If Boeing makes up 70% of the global fleet, but only 65% of incidents, then that would mean they were safer rather than not. Airbus has delivered more planes than Boeing in the last two years but I'm having trouble finding statistics on overall fleet makeups going back further than that.

staticelf 6y ago

I thought Qantas was the worlds safest airline by far.

SimplyUnknown 6y ago

Another explanation: Ryanair is a budget airline and was able to buy more 737-Maxes at a very low price, making their already cheap tickets even cheaper, allowing them to increase profit margins and cementing their status as the cheapest airline around even if that comes at the expense of safety. Either way, both explanations are speculation and we'll have to see how that turns out.

overscore 6y ago
Ryanair do have a history of taking advantage of industry slumps, having put in an order for 100 aircraft with Boeing in January 2002 when aviation had nearly collapsed. That said, they take safety extraordinarily seriously and would not risk their reputation if they had doubts about the Max.

onion2k 6y ago

So there is confidence in the aircraft in industry, at least. It's also possible that Ryanair believes that a crash wouldn't damage their business significantly. Ryanair competes almost entirely on price, to the point of removing literally everything they can in order to stay the cheapest option. A decade ago they considered removing the seats from their planes (https://www.theguardian.com/money/2010/jul/01/stand-up-for-ryanair https://www.theguardian.com/money/2010/jul/01/stand-up-for-r...) as well as plans for things like making passengers pay to use the bathrooms. More recently Ryanair refused to remove middle seats in order to help stop the spread of Corona virus. I would be very reluctant to believe Ryanair believe in the 737 Max for any reason besides cost. Safety is not a priority for them beyond meeting the absolute minimum requirements necessary to fly.

algesten 6y ago
Ryanair is pretty good on safety (my brother is a pilot with them). However they do absolutely everything to push costs down. MAX is a significant saving in fuel, which is one of the biggest costs.
- rutthenut 6y ago
  I also expect Ryanair got a hefty discount on increasing their orders for the max
- Majestic121 6y ago
  No offense, but your brother being a pilot with them seems irrelevant on whether they are 'pretty good with safety' or not. Working there is a pretty big bias
  - avh02 6y ago
    I dunno, there's some jobs you see from the inside you think "wow, this is a disaster" but from the outside it looks fine because that's what the company projects. (Anecdotally, a friend of mine gets horror stories from his brother, who's a mechanic with a very large airline)
  - 6y ago

bjarneh 6y ago

> which is by far the world's safest airline https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/06/what-are-the-safest-airlines-in-the-world-here-are-the-top-20.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/06/what-are-the-safest-airlines... It seems Ryanair does not make it to the top 20 in terms of being the safest airline. Ryanair comes in at the 7th place for the low-cost-airline safety. It could mean that Boeing are handing out huge discounts, or that Ryanair bets on these planes never making it to market, forcing Boeing to give them a killer deal on a replacement plane etc. The thing is that most passengers that have read any of the articles about this plane, will never set foot on one of them.

overscore 6y ago
In one website's subjective ranking. However, their safety record speaks for itself - no fatalities or serious accidents. None of the airlines in the top ten listing in that article come close.
- bjarneh 6y ago
  > In one website's subjective ranking. It may be somewhat subjective, and it is probably hard to compare the many airlines that have had no fatalities or serious accidents (reported at least) in the last 30-40 years; like Ryanair has. But you said Ryanair were the safest of any airline (by far), which seems strange as there are many airlines with similar safety records as Ryanair. Why should they rank above everyone else? In the end the customers will decide, but hopefully we can avoid another load of customers hitting the ground in MAX (or 8) crash.
  - overscore 6y ago
    There aren't that many airlines with no fatal or serious accidents or incidents in the last 30-40 years. For example, by that measure, the number 1 on the list linked above, Qantas, doesn't qualify, having had two major incidents in the last two decades.
    - bjarneh 6y ago

StreamBright 6y ago

I do not know why this is getting downvoted. Simply stating facts. My confidence in Ryanair is decreasing. The only problem that they got routes that no other European airline has and I am forced to fly with them time to time even though I try to avoid them like plague. If there are multiple flights from A to B and there is Ryanair in the mix, the price difference is usually negligible (5 - 10 EUR) and I am always willing to pay that little extra to an other airline which has a decent CEO (not like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_O%27Leary_(businessman) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_O%27Leary_(businessman...).

ulfw 6y ago

Or they ordered it because they got a great deal and because they're only running 737s and nothing else.