[taylodl]

If it's Boeing, I ain't going!

Seriously, after seeing several Boeing engineers saying they wouldn't fly on a Boeing aircraft, and seeing how their management has handled their crises, I'm not flying Boeing. That company needs a major restructure and "come to Jesus" moment before I'll ever trust them again. So far, that isn't even on the horizon.

[zamadatix]

https://i.imgur.com/tyq5qOC.png

I'm all for backing the regulatory pressure that has allowed this constant improvement (consider that flights per year have increased while the trendlines in those graphs have decreased) but I'm going to need to see that accident number reach about 100x what it is right now before I care about it enough to personally switch flights. The commercial aerospace side of Boeing has over 10,000 engineers, several of them have probably said we didn't land on the moon too. The way their management has handled decline in their record is at least a fair point just not nearly bad enough yet for me to really care as often as articles about it get posted here or enough to switch flights yet.

[zamadatix]

Was just playing with some other NTSB statistics and noticed the graph range doesn't shrink to fit, here's the continued risk decline: https://i.imgur.com/gKomsVa.png

[philsnow]

I've had similar thoughts, but how does that work for you in practice?

If you book a flight that says it's an airbus plane and then you show up and the airline had to sub in a boeing plane, do you just cancel your trip?

If you don't have the expensive tickets that allow same-day rebooking, I can't imagine any airline would humor an attempt to get a refund or to have them waive a rebooking fee.

Similarly if you're traveling for business and your company has paid for the ticket, some companies let you book your own travel and then get it reimbursed, but presumably you're needed at the destination so if the day of travel comes and the plane is an airbus and you "nope" out of there, you're going to have to hope that your work is okay with your explanation.

All of this is because "if it's boeing, I ain't going" can seem alarmist or reactionary since the FAA has so far declined to drop the hammer on them.

[taylodl]

In practice, you can only (reasonably) minimize your odds of flying on Boeing. That means "no" to Southwest Airlines. It means "yes" to Frontier Airlines, whose entire fleet consists only of Airbus planes. Thank goodness where I'm located and often need to go to are well-served by Frontier Airlines!

BUT - many airlines operate a mixed fleet. Book on an Airbus. They rarely change planes, but if they do, say your prayers! Unless you have tickets easily allowing you to re-book, which most of us aren't purchasing.

[rootusrootus]

That's a tough one. I care more about the airline than the airliner, and Frontier definitely is not near the top of my list.

[jen20]

It’s often possible to take a suboptimal route to avoid a Boeing. For example, if I fly Austin to San Francisco, it could well be a MAX, but if I go to SJC via LAX instead it is almost guaranteed not to be.

[verzali]

How much more dangerous is it to take two flights (and two different planes with varying ages and maintenance records, plus two landings and take offs), than to take one Boeing?

[Ajay-p]

I am ok with older Boeing airplanes. While I am skeptical of the company's current safety program, and attention to detail, I think the older planes - with many C checks done - are safe to fly. Something happened with the 737 Max, clearly a management decision, that increased risk or perhaps inattention to detail.

My opinion is that the company was run by bean counters instead of engineers, and the stock market convinced the business people that changing the way they made airplanes, made sense.

[bamboozled]

Dreamliner? Impeccable safety record so far.

[Ajay-p]

As I mentioned, older Boeing's. The Dreamliner been flying since 2011, that's an older Boeing for me, compared to the 737 Max which has only been flying commercially since 2016.

[bamboozled]

I see, true