In 2022, globally, there was one accident per 664,186 flights. [1] That includes a lot of poorly funded airlines and a lot of very old aircraft. The 737 Max numbers you present are worse than the global average when they should be much better for a well designed modern aircraft.
This is not even considering the numerous documented issues with their quality control programs. Also, the global average I referred to are for accidents, not crashes like your numbers.
Sure, but A. most people don't know or care to avoid Boeing and B. the odds are still really good, and probably safer than driving and quite a bit faster. It's not to say we shouldn't do better, but I really doubt that public demand shifts are doing much of anything to apply pressure.
If anything, the couple days airlines had to spend with the 737s grounded did more FAA-enforced financial damage than the collective of consumers is likely to bring to bear. If there's a trip I need to make, I'm not spending 3x the money to maybe not be on a 737.
There's also just the incident treadmill. Boeing is getting all the bad news now for good reasons, but how confident are we that there isn't a similar Airbus issue that'll come out soon? The 737 seemed like a fine plane before a few years ago. If we're playing a pure game of statistics, the 737 looks bad, but maybe it's just a really unlucky streak? Even terribly designed products that shouldn't have been allowed work fine a lot of the time.
> There's also just the incident treadmill. Boeing is getting all the bad news now for good reasons, but how confident are we that there isn't a similar Airbus issue that'll come out soon?
That's not how confidence works, while Airbus has confidence from the public and doesn't do something to lose it, they have the upper hand.
You are trying to use numbers and statistics to fight against a loss of confidence, that won't work in the short to medium term, confidence and trust is built upon human emotions, not hard data. There's a reason why "loss of confidence" is a major trigger for economic crisis, the feeling itself triggers a domino effect that feedback into the issue, aggravating it.
The same is happening to Boeing, they lost confidence while Airbus didn't, people won't trust Boeing, bad press will be focusing on Boeing, so on and so forth, until they have regained confidence. It's well deserved, if they didn't lose it they could continue their practices and potentially worsen the safety of their products since there wouldn't be blowback triggering fear in their executives, loss of confidence is working as intended.
For sure. I totally agree with you about what's happening from a business perspective, but I'm just pointing out that it's innately not completely rational and it's not necessarily a good guide to how we should think about risks as a customer. You see this in the cycle of "OMG, GCP had a big security issue, move to AWS!" and then in 6 months it's "AWS has a big security issue, move to Azure!" and then later it's "Azure has a big issue, move to... ???".
It's not that you shouldn't pay attention to the incidents, just that when you're evaluating risks, it's important to not just assume that the most recent and high profile problem is indicative of higher risk in that system, as opposed to it being that system's chance to have its 0.01% failure case hit. As they say in finance, past performance is not indicative of future outcomes.
My point with the original comment is that flight pricing today shows that people do know and care to avoid Boeing. The market value of a 737-MAX-9 flight is about 1/3 of what a flight on any other airplane is, and even at that price they couldn't fill the plane. The scheduling was relatively convenient too, and my leg out (on Air Canada) was also a 737-MAX-9 that was discounted by about 2/3. That shows that consumers actually are actively avoiding the aircraft and factoring it into their purchasing decisions.
And TBH, if pricing were equal there's no way you could get me to fly on a 737-MAX. My thesis is just that everybody else is valuing the risk much higher than it is, and that 737-MAXes have likely had every bolt combed over at this point, and the systemic issues found indicate that really it's every plane made in the last 25 years that is risky.
I'd be really curious if that causal though. Airline pricing is an extreme black box, subject to tons of factors. Maybe the other flight is just at a better time for people traveling before/after some event? Or it's on an airline that more people prefer? So much of flying is done by corporate travel where you barely have a choice of time or layover or airline, let alone which plane you fly on.
By contrast, I was booking a flight next month and could have gotten an Airbus flight for $150, but on an airline I loathe, so I took a 737 flight for $250 because assuming I don't die, it'll be a much better experience.
As an easterner who lived in California for many years, the breathless news coverage of a tiny thunderstorm in CA which had a bit of lightning provoked a bit of a chuckle. The report was accompanied with statistics about how rarely lightning injured people and there was no real cause for concern.
Totally! The company I work for in Los Angeles gave a people a work from home day because it was raining. You can't be expected to drive to work in the rain? Not after COVID apparently.
It is not about charger coverage. When I have a 7:00 flight after an all day meeting I don't want to or can't budget the time required to fully charge an EV on my way to the airport. It's all about time.
2 hours is still a lot longer than 5 minutes. Rapid turnover is important for these folks. I've seen rental companies run out of cars numerous times. Two hours is tough. Plus, how about when dozens of cars have been turned in and are waiting on a charge? If anything, they are most likely to levy a higher fee for returning uncharged because of their lost time.
