This is completely wrong, and there is plenty of data that says so. Especially when you start talking about business and frequent travelers, they are notoriously picky and will cancel flights based on a plane class or even when a specific aircraft usually does the route.

https://www.businessinsider.com/americans-dont-want-to-fly-b...

"If you had a flight on a Boeing 737 Max next week, and the FAA decided to clear the aircraft for flight, given the issues the plane has experienced, what would you do?

53.1% of respondents said they would reschedule. Of those, the survey found that 18.7% of respondents would reschedule their flight only if it didn't require a fee. Another 4.4% of respondents said they would pay to reschedule their flight up to a certain monetary fee, which they then typed in. A full 30% of people would cancel or reschedule their flights, regardless of the cost to them"

I feel like US is a completely different universe when it comes to this. I fly several times per year and there is no such thing as "choice" when it comes to flying. It's a matter of which operator has a connection on that route, having multiple operators fly the same route is completely unheard of(for me). If Ryanair rolls out a fleet of 737 Max tomorrow....I will fly on the 737 Max. I can't go "oh well I'll just fly BA" - because BA does not fly that route, and the alternative is flying somewhere else and a lengthy car or train journey.

I can choose either Ryanair, EasyJet, Norwegian, BA or SAS to fly direct to London. Just clicking around FlightConnections [1], about half of routes to 1500-2000km-away Europe have more than one airline. For example, two airlines fly to Stuttgart and Zürich, but one each to Basel and Luxembourg.

Of course, if you live near a smaller airport there's less choice -- but you are probably more used to connecting flights in that case.

[1] https://www.flightconnections.com/

That's a bad interpretation of this survey.

The initial question should be - have you ever checked what aircraft you will be flying ?

99% of passengers have no idea.

I don't think this 99% figure is true based on my personal experiences, but even if it was accurate a few months ago it's not anymore. People sure as hell are paying attention to which plane they fly on now, because they have to.

It wasn't really a concern in the past because Boeing and the FAA didn't appear to be failing. They have impressive mountains of data that they hid behind while just operating with staggering negligence and incompetence, day after day.

I don't care how many agencies certify the max, I know way too much about it's design and how much pilots hate it now, I'm never flying on it.

99% is not a precise figure for sure. I've found those 2 articles / surveys on that: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ethiopia-airplane-boeing-...

"Southwest said the comments were consistent with feedback it receives and noted that “well less than 1% of customers check their aircraft type traditionally, but we do expect more customers to become aware given the current climate.” " - 99% seems close :) I frankly don't expect that to change that much - maybe it will become 95%, still overhelming majority.

Survey: https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/mkt/11/10298/10205/201...

I think that 99% is probably more like 95%. That still doesn’t sound very significant -- only 5% of passengers bother to check! -- but given the slim operating margins of airlines, 5% lost revenue would be a huge blow.

May be 99% HAD no idea. Thats because they did not know Boeing was knowingly putting them inside a death machine. It will be a different story now.

How do you know this is true?