6 ms·

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

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 3y ago
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 3y ago
  The 8200 is a higher density version of the 8 and it comes with an extra pair of exits because of this.
  - rob74 3y ago
    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 3y ago
      According to https://www.easa.europa.eu/en/downloads/7297/en 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_Draft.pdf 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 3y ago
  Southwest has dozens of Max 8s, for what it’s worth: https://www.planespotters.net/airline/Southwest-Airlines https://www.planespotters.net/airline/Southwest-Airlines I booked a flight with them last night, and it’s scheduled to fly on one.
mihaaly 3y ago
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 3y ago
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 3y ago
  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 3y ago
    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 3y ago
      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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Havilland_Comet
    - marcus0x62 3y ago
      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.
HenryBemis 3y ago
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 3y ago
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 3y ago
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 3y ago
  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 3y ago
    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?
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - mattmaroon 3y ago
      You’d generally be swapping the crew as well which is another reason this doesn’t happen a lot.
    - throw0101d 3y ago
      > certification * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_rating https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_rating
    - rangestransform 3y ago
      well the whole point of MCAS was to allow pilots to fly the 737MAX without needing another type rating
Waterluvian 3y ago
It can happen but is it a real problem or just a hypothetical one?
- ghaff 3y ago
  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 3y ago
Congratulations, you've found a new insurance niche.
instagib 3y ago
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 3y ago
  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 3y ago
  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 3y ago
  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 3y ago
    Why would authorities get upset?
    - marcosdumay 3y ago
      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.
rsynnott 3y ago
Many airlines, in practice, only fly a particular type or type of planes on a particular route.
whywhywhywhy 3y ago
Also if enough people start doing this wouldn't the airlines just stop reporting what the plane is.
cjrp 3y ago
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 3y ago
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 3y ago
  Until there’s a mechanical issue last minute and they put you on another airline to get you a seat home.

rob74 3y ago

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 3y ago
The 8200 is a higher density version of the 8 and it comes with an extra pair of exits because of this.
- rob74 3y ago
  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 3y ago
    According to https://www.easa.europa.eu/en/downloads/7297/en 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_Draft.pdf 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 3y ago
Southwest has dozens of Max 8s, for what it’s worth: https://www.planespotters.net/airline/Southwest-Airlines https://www.planespotters.net/airline/Southwest-Airlines I booked a flight with them last night, and it’s scheduled to fly on one.

mihaaly 3y ago

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 3y ago

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 3y ago
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 3y ago
  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 3y ago
    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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Havilland_Comet
  - marcus0x62 3y ago
    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.

HenryBemis 3y ago

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 3y ago

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 3y ago

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 3y ago
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 3y ago
  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?
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - mattmaroon 3y ago
    You’d generally be swapping the crew as well which is another reason this doesn’t happen a lot.
  - throw0101d 3y ago
    > certification * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_rating https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_rating
  - rangestransform 3y ago
    well the whole point of MCAS was to allow pilots to fly the 737MAX without needing another type rating

Waterluvian 3y ago

It can happen but is it a real problem or just a hypothetical one?

ghaff 3y ago
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 3y ago

Congratulations, you've found a new insurance niche.

instagib 3y ago

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 3y ago
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 3y ago
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 3y ago
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 3y ago
  Why would authorities get upset?
  - marcosdumay 3y ago
    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.

rsynnott 3y ago

Many airlines, in practice, only fly a particular type or type of planes on a particular route.

whywhywhywhy 3y ago

Also if enough people start doing this wouldn't the airlines just stop reporting what the plane is.

cjrp 3y ago

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 3y ago

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 3y ago
Until there’s a mechanical issue last minute and they put you on another airline to get you a seat home.