It may be illogical from a strictly individual point of view. But from a broader societal view we'd all be better off if we did it and it is pro-social and pro-civic to be willing to sacrifice a little of your personal convenience to make a point like this. Nothing but nothing will get Boeing's attention like what is essentially an end-customer strike.

In general quite a lot of the chains wrapped around us that drive so many people to complain are really only kept there by raw personal selfish convenience. To be clear, I am absolutely not saying that they are not real as a result. They are perfectly real. But in many cases they are still really nothing more than personal convenience holding you. For instance, as I write this, almost all of the dangers of smart phones can be kept at bay just by refusing the conveniences. (Not quite all. But really quite a lot of them.)

We'd all be better off if there were more of us willing to take this kind of stand, and by that standard, it is Vulcan-grade logical.

Boeing stock is down substantially. That will get their attention.

10% doesn't seem much. I was expecting it to be worse

The market (correctly) assumes that the FAA won't make any decisions that might endanger Boeing financially in any really significant way that might turn into an existential threat.

Also true! And if the mood strikes the media complex to kick a wounded gazelle for profit, which they are known to do, a site like this getting featured on the news may well feed back into their stock price too.

And moreso than passenger complaints. Passengers don't buy airplanes.

Boing will listen to the airlines and the markets.

> willing to sacrifice a little of your personal convenience

It's not convenience, it's that the ONLY reasonably priced flights are non-refundable ones, and not everyone can afford another flight ticket just to prove a point. Another idiotic thing that we need to change.

Although I really do wish there were an "Airbus only" option when booking flight tickets. And as much as I don't normally like to stereotype things, when it comes to safety I feel I've consistently seen much better safety standards in EU than the USA. Safety seems more drilled into the European culture. I just somehow have this gut feeling that some random dude at Airbus crimping some wire probably actually did everything correctly and to specifications.

Not to mention they have stricter work hour limits in Europe, so I don't have to worry about someone doing a shoddy job due to lack of sleep.

Alaska temporary switched to the flexible travel policy because of this incident, so you should be able to change your ticket fairly easily.

i'm not 100% sold on the automation that airbus provides. true that when all the sensors are working well it's fine and probably safer than boeing's methodology. however, when things go south there are something like 5 different layers of degraded "laws" of flight that have different levels of protection and can make what is an already cloudy situation even more stressful and dangerous. coupled with the blended control that each stick has can and has caused disasters before. with boeing the pilot flys the plane and there is less automation outside of the standard autopilot systems found on both methodologies.

And driving home is still more dangerous than getting on the flight.

Per mile traveled but not per trip.

I'm not sure how that applies here - the trip home from a travel destination will be a similar distance whether driven or flown.

It doesn't, it's part of the mental gymnastics people are going to through to try to argue that commercial aviation is more dangerous than it is.

Because the idea that airplane travel is safer than passenger vehicle travel is propaganda/marketing. Flying is safe, but in practical terms the sentence "flying is safer than driving" is not only nonsensical but also false.

If you could magically replace every passenger vehicle trip with a commercial airline flight, including the quick trips down the street to the grocery store, there would be more fatalities. Because, statistically, flying is less safe per trip.

The reason why flying is safer for long trips is because the "danger window" of a flight is generally takeoff and landing, while the "danger window" for driving is basically the whole drive.

You can slice this another way. In the book Freakonomics, they discuss that "per hour spent traveling" the passenger vehicle and the airplane are approximately the same risk level.

For you, maybe. Not for me. The trains between my airport and my home have a pretty much perfect safety record.

>I'd definitely book tickets that I can change at the last minute, and refuse to board if it turns out to be a 737 Max.

E̶v̶e̶n̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶f̶l̶e̶x̶i̶b̶l̶e̶ ̶t̶i̶c̶k̶e̶t̶s̶,̶ ̶m̶o̶s̶t̶ ̶c̶a̶r̶r̶i̶e̶r̶s̶ ̶d̶o̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶a̶l̶l̶o̶w̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶c̶a̶n̶c̶e̶l̶ ̶l̶e̶s̶s̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶n̶ ̶2̶4̶ ̶h̶o̶u̶r̶s̶ ̶p̶r̶i̶o̶r̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶d̶e̶p̶a̶r̶t̶u̶r̶e̶ Also, airlines would most likely charge you the difference between the fare price, which for a last minute ticket is might be a significant price difference.

>But I rather have to wait some hours for the next flight than take the risk to die because of Boeing.

So you'd rather lose a few hours of your life waiting at an airport, than losing a few minutes of your life over the risk of dying from a 737 Max? Whatever floats your boat, I guess.

> you'd rather lose a few hours of your life waiting at an airport, than losing a few minutes of your life over the risk of dying from a 737 Max

I’ve chosen a less-than-ideal itinerary for comfort (e.g. lay-flat seat or direct flight).

Flying is stressful for a lot of people. As OP admits, it’s irrational. But if it means you avoid spending the flight in a panic, it’s not unreasonable to swap planes or even eat the ticket cost. (It might be a sign to talk to someone about anxiety.)

Yes, that's right, that's my current feeling which may or may not change in the future.

Thanks for the summary!

Edit, as you added more content to your comment rather than just a one-liner snark:

> Even with flexible tickets, most carriers don't allow you to cancel less than 24 hours prior to departure

I guess my typical airline isn't in your personal category of "most carriers" as they allow me to change any dates for my ticket up until I've boarded the first flight. YMMV obviously.

> Even with flexible tickets, most carriers don't allow you to cancel less than 24 hours prior to departure.

They definitely do! It's usually until just before departure - but some flexible tickets you can just no-show and get a refund. In some cases, there may be some no-show penalty, but definitely not universally. I can't think of any US carriers that impose a 24 hour cancelation restriction. I'm sure there's some international ones.

> Also, airlines would most likely charge you the difference between the fare price, which for a last minute ticket is might be a significant price difference.

Usually within the US, you can do a same-day change or same-day standby for some nominal, fixed amount of money on any ticket (free with status) and swap to any flight within ~24 hours (specific restrictions vary).

Here's American's policy on same-day changes [1]. Here's Delta's [2]. United's [3].

> So you'd rather lose a few hours of your life waiting at an airport, than losing a few minutes of your life over the risk of dying from a 737 Max? Whatever floats your boat, I guess.

On this we completely agree. I ran the numbers and your likelihood of dying on a 737 NG is 1/400 the risk of dying in a car on a per-mile basis. Based on the median distance from home to a US airport of 17 miles, you're more likely to die on the road to and from the airport than a 16,500mi flight on a 737. And infinitely more likely to get injured.

[1] https://www.aa.com/i18n/plan-travel/extras/same-day-travel.j...

[2] https://www.delta.com/us/en/change-cancel/same-day-flight-ch...

[3] https://www.united.com/en/us/fly/travel/trip-planning/flight...

The 737 is cursed. Not illogical to avoid it. There are plenty alternatives.

Point of order, because this is HN and I get to be pedantic here: the 737 Max is cursed; the 737 and 737NG are proven good by their long track record of reliability through thousands of units produced and in service

The 737NG has a known issue with the nacelles being insufficient to contain engine failures. This actually happened in 2018 and a woman was sucked out of the plane and died.

https://www.aerotime.aero/articles/faa-mandates-boeing-737ng...

There are not plenty of alternatives, basically onoy one: A320Neo. The A220 is too small eith not enough range in most cases.

It'd be all fine and dandy if you didn't hop in a car after getting off your Airbus

Except according to the top comment,

"A lot of people don't realize that the fuselage of this plane isn't even made by Boeing, it's made by Spirit AeroSystems which also makes components for Airbus. We don't really know who to blame here until the investigation concludes."

So I guess you just shouldn't fly.

Except Airbus doesn't have planes falling apart in midair even if they are using the same supplier. This is clearly an issue during assembly regardless of the supplier of the parts.

In 2010, an Airbus A380 engine exploded. The fact that it landed safely was a miracle. [1] In 2017, an Airbus A380 lost an engine (literally, fell off the plane). [2] In 2018, a cockpit windshield blew out in an Airbus A319. [3]

Don't get me wrong, the culture at Boeing has changed (for the worse). The 737 Max is not without issues. It's horrific that hundreds have died due to both ignorance and deception on behalf of Boeing.

But Airbus isn't some sort of flawless golden goose either. Any time something like this happens, failure modes are identified and things will get safer.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qantas_Flight_32

[2] https://www.planeandpilotmag.com/news/the-latest/photos-airb...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sichuan_Airlines_Flight_8633

But in all cases there was no subsequent news that inspection of all airbus planes proved most engines were bolted to the wing wrong... or that all the windshields were glued wrong.

And this loose bolts thing shows up on a plane model where the "driving controls" were designed wrong.

Note that no one is complaining about the other Boeing 737 models.

> Note that no one is complaining about the other Boeing 737 models.

But why not? The 737NG has a known issue that killed someone in 2018 and the fix isn’t even planned to be in place until 2028.

https://www.aerotime.aero/articles/faa-mandates-boeing-737ng...

That's a great article. I didn't understand what is wrong or what the proposed measures are :)

It’s pretty wordy but all the information is there.

> That includes a new spacer design for the engine inlet with increased fastener capability, changes to the fan cowl and fan cowl support beam, and the implementation of new exhaust nozzle structural stiffening elements.

> According to the National Safety Transportation Board’s (NTSB) executive summary of the incident, parts “of the left engine inlet and fan cowl separated from the airplane, and fragments from the inlet and fan cowl struck the left wing, the left-side fuselage, and the left horizontal stabilizer”. One of the fragments of the cowl struck the fuselage near a cabin window, with the window departing the 737-700 and resulting in rapid depressurization.

I find the A380 accidents quite fascinating. If there is a plane I want to lose an engine on it’s one with four on it for sure. :)

Technically, the Osprey can loose one engine and continue to fly too. They have linkage connecting each engine to the other rotor specifically for this.

A380 can loose only one engine and fly, same as smaller planes, they can loose an engine and land.

> A380 can loose only one engine and fly

Modern airliners can glide tens miles with complete loss of power. (It's why they have RATs [1].)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram_air_turbine

glade != fly

it's not flawless but, it _does_ have a better safety record.

Not trying to move the goalposts, but how old were these Airbus planes at the time of their incidents? Were they months old off the assembly line, or were they several years in where slips in maintenance and inspections came into play?

Also importantly, did Airbus actively deceive people, causing these incidents? I don't think so.

The blame could be with a single individual, a group of people, the politics at Boeing or the engineering at AeroSystems.

The point is that none of the Airbus planes had the same sort of in-flight extreme ventilation as the Boeing plane just had, nor are any entire series of airplanes from Airbus currently grounded because of lose bolts.

As I said, it's not logical, it's not based on reason nor numbers. It's just a feeling.