7 ms·
At what point do consumers en-masse refuse to fly on these aircraft, if ever? When there's a few more fatal crashes?
by intunderflow 3y ago
At what point do consumers en-masse refuse to fly on these aircraft, if ever? When there's a few more fatal crashes?
- t0mas88 3y agoUnfortunately consumers don't have much choice, the airline can change which type operates a flight at any time. However longer term if Boeing's reputation keeps getting worse that can motivate buying decisions by the airlines. That change will be a very slow one, because fleet changes cost a lot of money in training crews, changing maintenance etc. For example KLM is changing their short-haul fleet from the 737 NG to the A320neo family, that will take many years to completely roll out.
- neverartful 3y agoTrue, but some airlines probably don't have any in their fleet. If worried consumers find out they could opt to not fly on those airlines.
- bilbo0s 3y agoMost airlines do have MAXs. Delta does not. However, they have ordered some MAXs. So they will have MAXs in the future. That will take quite some time however. So if it's really that big of an issue for a person, then just fly Delta for the time being.
- plopz 3y agospirit doesn't have any of these in their fleet, but it's not the most comfortable flight
- chriskanan 3y agoDelta doesn't have any currently, although they ordered a bunch of the MAX family that will be delivered from 2025 - 2029. It will probably be impossible to avoid them, long-term.
- fullshark 3y agoI think it would require a fatal air crash of an American flight with a major celebrity on board.
- psunavy03 3y ago. . . and the US airline industry has still not had a fatal crash in just under 25 years.
- hunterjrj 3y agoUnfortunately there was one in the Buffalo area in 2009: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colgan_Air_Flight_3407 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colgan_Air_Flight_3407
- intrasight 3y agoBeverly Eckert, Sept. 11 Widow and neighbor of a friend, died on that flight. Still makes me sad for their family.
- Max-q 3y ago* 15 years Still impressive.
- psunavy03 3y agoPublic math. Ugh.
- pixl97 3y agoWhat is considered a US airline, and I'm assuming the minimal fatality count is 1 right? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PenAir_Flight_3296 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PenAir_Flight_3296
- tremon 3y agoKobe Bryant's death in 2020 doesn't count? I guess because it was a private charter (and a helicopter, but that's still air travel)?
- hmottestad 3y agoMaybe when airlines start advertising that they don’t use the new 737s. The more likely scenario is that the Chinese or Europeans will ground the new 737s until some very expensive fix is put into place and not accept any workarounds. That would probably make a difference. FYI: https://qz.com/1569865/china-grounds-737-max-8-after-ethiopian-airlines-et-302-crash https://qz.com/1569865/china-grounds-737-max-8-after-ethiopi...
- gostsamo 3y agoThere are mutual recognition agreements between the regulators and if the europeans try something like that, the americans can create counter measures to even the field in a mutually undesired spiral. At this moment, the biggest enemy of Boeing is Boeing itself.
- vidanay 3y agoWe don't care if people die, just so long as your enforcement is not any more rigorous than ours!
- gostsamo 3y agoIt is more like "our cooperation is more valuable than temporary monetary advantages which could be negated and which could leave everyone worse overall". I'm not sure why deliberately misinterpret my comment, but you are quite wrong. The first 737max precedent is quite instructive for the relationship between the two regulators.
- hmottestad 3y agoI’m not sure I understand what you are getting at. I’m assuming that the US is less likely to demand costly changes to aircraft produced by Boeing because of the implications it would have for their own economy. I wouldn’t trust France to preemptive ground a series of Airbus planes either.
- hef19898 3y ago
- j-bos 3y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38917569 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38917569
- makestuff 3y agoI doubt ever, consumers have been proven to select the cheapest airline ticket. The average once-a-year flier likely has no idea what aircraft they are even flying on.
- lokar 3y agoI wonder what fraction of seats/revenue come from people who take one or fewer trips per year.
- KolmogorovComp 3y ago1% of people represent 50% of the ~~flights~~ emissions (see thread): https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/nov/17/people-cause-global-aviation-emissions-study-covid-19 https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/nov/17/people-caus...
- ekam 3y agoThis about 50% of emissions not 50% of flights
- KolmogorovComp 3y agoMy bad, probably inflated by private jets then?
- joegibbs 3y agoThat's not 1% of fliers representing half the flights though, I think it's more like 10% - it's saying that 1% of the entire world population causes it and only 11% of the world actually flies once a year.
- varelse 3y ago[dead]
- im3w1l 3y agoI'd be willing to pay a premium not to fly on such an aircraft but not too big, as even though they aren't quite as safe as they should be, my impression is that the risk is still fairly low. Something on the order of 5%
- gruez 3y agoStatistically speaking it's not worth worrying about. In 2021 there were less than 0.001 deaths per 100M passenger miles. Assuming these aircraft are 10x more dangerous than the alternative, that works out to 0.01 deaths per 100M passenger miles, or 0.00000026 deaths NY to SF flight. For an average american aged 38.9 years[2] with 40 years of life left[3], that works out to a loss of life of 5.4 minutes. I don't think most americans would worry over this, especially compared to other far more deadly threats like obesity. [1] https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/home-and-community/safety-topics/deaths-by-transportation-mode/ https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/home-and-community/safety-topics... [2] https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2023/population-estimates-characteristics.html https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2023/populati... [3] https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html
- tw04 3y ago>Statistically speaking it's not worth worrying about. Those statistics don't really work out at all. They take number of miles and deaths, and nothing else. Let's say flown miles and driven miles are exactly the same for arguments sake. If the number of miles flown on planes were traveled by 4 million people, whereas the number of miles traveled by car were from 4 billion people, your likelihood of dying in a plane crash is FAR higher than by car if you're one of the 4 million who fly on a plane. Miles and deaths alone are pretty poor metrics. There's also the part where I may only drive once or twice a week vs. the average which takes into account people who commute daily. So my odds of dying in a car crash are still lower. The frequency of travel seems just as pertinent as the miles traveled.
- gruez 3y ago> They take number of miles and deaths, and nothing else. Let's say flown miles and driven miles are exactly the same for arguments sake. If the number of miles flown on planes were traveled by 4 million people, whereas the number of miles traveled by car were from 4 billion people, your likelihood of dying in a plane crash is FAR higher than by car if you're one of the 4 million who fly on a plane. It's passenger miles, so the number of passengers is already factored in.
- kube-system 3y agoPeople don't change their behavior much when things like this happen. When it comes around to the next big travel weekend, people will continue to book on whatever airline gets them to the right place at the right time for the right price. Even when people have a direct ability to change what vehicle they travel on, like with car sales, safety incidents/features/records/etc have little impact to no on sales. This is one of the reasons why transportation safety is regulated rather than being left up to market forces. Market forces don't really have an impact until the safety risk reaches some extreme levels.
- 0xffff2 3y agoAs far as I can see, there's no real way to communicate this preference to airlines. I won't book a flight on a MAX, but the airline can change the airframe at the last second and it's highly situational how willing/able I am to just refuse to fly if they swap in a MAX.
- eterm 3y agoI've communicated it albeit very indirectly. When looking at holiday packages for this summer I looked up the route to see if it's a 737 max before booking. It wasn't, it was an A320 as I expected.
- plagiarist 3y agoThe typical person does not have the information about these failures, won't prioritize better odds of survival over short-term savings, and do not have enough money to choose alternatives anyway.
- arcticbull 3y agoPeople are very bad at managing risk. Even with all this, a 737-NG is infinitely safer than getting in a car, and yet people drive every day. Getting into your sedan is several orders of magnitude riskier than a 737. You're far more likely to die en route to the airport. Obviously that doesn't excuse Boeing, I'm just saying, by the numbers. [edit] The US has 1.5 deaths per 100M passenger-miles driven. [1] The 737 NG has hit 10,000,000 flight hours 5 year into operating. That should be around 500,000,000 miles flown. About 180 seats per plane makes that ~90B seat-miles. That's 0.0038 deaths per 100M seat-miles flown. So the 737-NG models are about 400X safer per mile than a car. The median American lives 17mi from an airport, so the safety break-even point is 13,600mi flown on a 737-NG, assuming your destination is also a median 17mi away from the airport. If you're flying less than 13,600mi on a given 737 one-way trip, you're more likely to die getting to and from the airport. Unless my math is off. This is just napkin math. [1] https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/motor-vehicle/historical-fatality-trends/deaths-and-rates/ https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/motor-vehicle/historical-fatalit...
- arrakeenrevived 3y agoI think HN really overestimates the impact of events like this with the general public. The very first A320 demonstration flight crashed, killing 3 people, allegedly due to software issues in the new fly-by-wire system, and then involved allegations that Airbus had tampered with the investigation. The demonstration flight was mostly journalists on the plane. [0] The A330 crashed on one of its certification flights due to an issue with the autopilot, killing all 7 onboard. [1] Both went on to be some of the all-time best selling aircraft, and meanwhile today in this thread you have people touting Airbus as a paragon of safety. Humans have a short memory. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_296Q https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_296Q 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_Industrie_Flight_129 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_Industrie_Flight_129 I mention these two specifically because they're examples of high-profile failures attributed due to issues with the aircraft early in their lifecycle, but basically every single popular aircraft type (except the B777 and A350) have had serious issues and loss of life due to manufacturing defects, but still went on to be overall successes. Hell, people still flew on the DC-10 even after its _numerous_ issues like AA 191..