So yes, up til now, commercial aviation has some good numbers. But we're also seeing door plugs fly off, tail assembly bolts improperly fastened, wheels falling off planes as they taxi around the runway, single points of failure on flight control software that cause aircraft to nose into the ground. These are the type of failures you wouldn't see 20 years ago (except for the MD-80, which was designed and manufactured by the same guys who took over Boeing in the 2000s.)
I'm not sure I want to wait to be a statistic. I'm happy to take the train.
I've been wondering about this. Is there an increase in failure rate or are we just reporting on issues that were not reported on before because this plane model is under extra scrutiny? When did Boeing have those battery issues? That was quite a few years ago and seemed to get forgotten about pretty quickly.
You're right statistics don't predict the future. They can be informative when trying to understand the effect of a sudden increase in fatalities (referring to MAX8/MCAS here and not MAX9/bolts, of course) and how the result can still be a mode of transportation that is orders of magnitude safer than alternative.
From a probability perspective, it's absolutely irrational. However that doesn't make your fear any less real to you.
After I went skydiving, the instructor came over to give me a pep talk in order to calm my nerves for what I was about to do—the most dangerous thing I may do all day—drive home. There are plenty of reasons to instinctually fear certain activities, but with rigorous preparation, inspection, and guidelines they can actually be safer than every day activities we grow complacent of.
Boeing's quality control issues have been known and talked about for years, and the initial MCAS problems with the MAX were the consequence of prioritizing certification and pilot training over a more robust redesign. But still, casualties per flight or per mile flown make even the least safe late model commercial airline remarkably reliable. Whenever an issue is discovered, they should ground the affected planes, investigate, resolve, and hopefully improve future quality control and maintenance guidelines.
So to answer your question, I would be comfortable to the extent that I wouldn't give the model of airplane a second thought and will buckle my seatbelt on the taxi ride to the airport next week for my flight. Airplane model unknown.