This is deceptive, intentionally.

No matter if the vehicle is safe to fly or not, some people may not feel comfortable flying on one. The only justification of overturning 80+ years of airliner industry precedent in eliminating the specific vehicle type from the descriptions is to deceive.

I don't think anything changed. Is there some compelling evidence that it did?

Here's the a/c type on southwest.com desktop, right now: https://imgur.com/a/B6PxsbB

I don't see it on mobile, but I don't think it's ever been there.

Or maybe it's just some designer fiddling with screen real-estate and negative space.

Or maybe it was some engineer making the point that the data wasn’t accurate or reliable in the first place.

What if both were true? And designers and engineers worked together to clean the UI from possibly wrong and noisy information in the results brief? Teamwork makes the dream-work.

The data was wrong all along but the management didn’t want to remove it until they finally realised that it’s creating a negative revenue pressure.

You can avoid the airlines that fly the Max altogether. Unfortunately it looks like Delta is the only major US airline that does not own any. Spirit and JetBlue also do not have any. United, American, and Southwest all operate the Max. I would avoid those airlines for routes that could be serviced by the Max.

How to ID a MAX.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-identify-boeing-737-max-l...

Odd that it doesn't mention the sawtooth pattern on the rear of the engine cowling, or the flat bottom shape of the engine as you look into the intake, versus the normal round shape for non-max/leap engines. Either of those is easy to spot from far away.

The CFM 56 on the 737 (NG or Classic) also has a flat bottom. E.g., [1] shows a 737-800 with an engine with a flat bottom, and [2] shows a 737-300 with an engine with a flat bottom.

[1] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:CFM_56_Lauda_737.jpg [2] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Classic_Colors_South...

I don't think that's right. Didn't several generations of 737 before MAX have that flattened engine bottom? I think I've been seeing it for considerably longer than MAX has been around.

Ah, yes, searching a bit, you appear to be right about the flat bottom. I believe the sawtooth edge is still correct though.

The sawtooth is called a "chevron" and is designed to reduce engine noise to meet FAA standards.

Is there a listing or database somewhere where I could look up other airlines? There's a few more regional and discount airlines I'm curious about.

Wikipedia has a list of MAX orders and deliveries by airline. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Boeing_737_MAX_order...

I don't think Southwest removed anything. From what I recall, it's always been on the flight status pages for both mobile and desktop. For the flight shopping pages, it's always been on desktop, but never on mobile.

This doesn't appear to be true? https://ibb.co/sWTWsnb

Maybe depends on what data the airline provides or desktop vs mobile https://ibb.co/3pdMY7m

Do you have a "before" screenshot to show it used to show this information with mobile? I didn't remember seeing it on mobile before, but again I don't really use it frequently.

You can look up the plane by its tail number.

But you're still at the mercy of the airline. If they do an equipment swap, you're not entitled to change or cancel. You'd only have the option not to fly, forfeiting the cost of your ticket.

As someone else in this thread said, just fly Delta (domestically).

Your second line is simply not true. Both American [1] and United [2] have committed to waiving change fees if you don't want to fly on a 737 MAX. Southwest is farther away from bringing the MAX back into service, so they have less detail on their site [3], but it sounds like they'll do something similar.

[1] https://www.aa.com/i18n/travel-info/737-MAX-return-to-servic...

[2] https://www.united.com/ual/en/us/fly/travel/inflight/aircraf... (under "What if I don't want to fly on a MAX?")

[3] https://www.southwest.com/737-max/#return-to-service-plan (under "What are Customers' options if they don't want to fly on a 737 MAX?")

A change fee waiver is a very, very small gesture. But you're right, at least it's something.

Southwest doesn't have change fees, so long as you cancel at least 10 minutes before the scheduled flight time. Assuming they had all their aircraft flying, the MAX aircraft are about 5 percent of the fleet.

Southwest's service is pretty thin in some places. Highly likely you won't get a flight the same day if you cancel to avoid the 737-HCF. Then, you have to explain to Great Aunt Greta why you won't be at Thanksgiving.

Better just to avoid Southwest.

I booked Southwest recently and it said Boeing 737-800 for me.

Is that after you’ve paid ? Trying the booking workflow on mobile now I don’t see it anywhere

On desktop you can click the flight number and the pop up shows the scheduled aircraft model.

No, when I was checking out I think. I knew before I paid what the plane was.