Online travel agent allows customers to filter out Boeing 737 Max planes
(www.theguardian.com)
from L4s@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world on 23 Jan 2024 22:00
https://lemmy.world/post/11100854
from L4s@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world on 23 Jan 2024 22:00
https://lemmy.world/post/11100854
Online travel agent allows customers to filter out Boeing 737 Max planes::Kayak customers can exclude Max 9 aircraft after cabin panel blowout on Alaska Airlines flight
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This is the best summary I could come up with:
A leading online travel agent has added filters to let users exclude flights that use Boeing’s troubled 737 Max planes, after a piece of fuselage falling off an Alaska Airlines flight led to a surge of user interest in avoiding the airliners.
Following the Alaska Airlines incident, it says there was a 15-fold increase in use of the original filter, prompting it to rework the setting, making it more prominent on the search page and adding the ability to distinguish between 737 Max 8 and Max 9 planes, since only the latter has been grounded by America’s Federal Aviation Administration.
The surge of interest in the new feature demonstrates the unusual extent to which typical travellers are actively avoiding the 737 Max planes.
Such filters are more commonly used by regular travellers with esoteric preferences around particular seat locations on various planes, rather than a broad-brush fear of an entire family of jets.
On Sunday, the FAA expanded its scrutiny of Boeing jets to another, older model of 737, the 737-900ER, which it says uses a similar door design.
“The safety of the flying public, not speed, will determine the timeline for returning these aircraft to service,” it said.
The original article contains 349 words, the summary contains 199 words. Saved 43%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Seems like a smart function. I would not feel safe in a Boeing at the moment.
Seems small but something like this could kill this plane as a passenger jet if enough people are avoiding em.
Sounds like capitalism in its best form.
Like clockwork
I’m all for it to be honest. The 737 Max sounds like a death trap, and until Boeing is banned from certifying their own planes nobody should be flying in these IMO.
The FAA needs to start certifying these themselves again, and remove the existing loopholes/exemptions that allow some design changes to avoid recertification
If I recall correctly this is basically what killed the dc-10
Hardly likely. If enough people start doing it, either airlines will start hiding the plane model, or boeing will rename it after some marketing to show things have changed, and the world will move on.
If this was the first incident with the Max, I’d agree with you.
But repeated issues close together have caused regulators amd the general public to look closer at Boeing as a whole; particularly their inspection, certification, and maintenance practices. I don’t think this will go away easily.
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youtu.be/hhT4M0UjJcg?si=sKJbR07hUq40UaV0
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yes… this does not seem a problem with Max, but one with Boeing. The US passengers don’t really have an option to choose Airbus when most of the airlines’ fleet in the US is Boeing.
We can hope so.
Multiple airlines in the US already have majority Airbus fleets. It’s not quite as hard to avoid as you might think
Delta is primarily an Airbus fleet. They do not currently fly any 737 MAX planes, though they have ordered 100 Max 10s for delivery starting in 2025.
I’ll assume they’re being pressured into it by the significant fuel savings the max offers over their current fleet.
Or, if are willing to fly any of the big 3’s regional brands it’ll be on a regional jet which Boeing doesn’t make. Generally those are made by Bombardier or less commonly Embraer. Though, bigger plane means smoother flight.
Perhaps to replace existing 737s. But the Airbus A320neo has similar fuel efficiency with high bypass turbofans.
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The A320neo and the Boeing 737 Max use larger turbofans for increasingly higher efficiency gains. These larger engines would be scraping on the ground with the original 737 design, which is why the engines had to be mounted further forward and higher on the wings. This is what changes the flight characteristics, leading Boeing to develop the MCAS system to make the plane fly like the older 737s, which famously led to two crashed planes when it malfunctioned.
The Airbus A320neo did not run into this problem because the landing gear for the A320 are longer and it sits much higher off the ground, so throwing on the larger turbofans still left them with plenty of ground clearance.
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Thanks for reading it! 😄
I agree with you on this one. There’s public sentiment and then there’s market reality. The hard truth is that most people have a need for a practical flight route within a certain window and there’s limited choices. Delta, United, etc. only have so many aircraft servicing so many routes and they already bought the aircraft and have to use them. While I’d personally like to avoid the 737 MAX, if it’s the only feasible choice, then that’s the one I gotta roll the dice on. I guess I’ll avoid window seats if possible.
don’t forget one of those aviator hats with visor, just in case
Nah, they will simply sell the planes to other markets. I’m sure there are plenty of non-US airlines willing to gobble up planes at a discount. The pundit and lobby machine would get engaged and magically there would be a big industry bailout to cover the losses.
The US is where they’re getting away with murder on their certification process. If the FAA cracks down on them, the world will follow the FAA’s guidance.
If it’s Boeing, I’m not going.
If it’s Boeing, you’re not going, one way or another.
So strange - can’t find the Max 9 filter option on their app or website.
Presumably it only shows models that actually fly the route you’re trying to book.
There aren’t many Max 9’s in the world, it’s a brand new model. Also in some countries the model is not allowed to fly with passengers on board right now.
Yes I thought the same so searched for the flight I have booked that uses a Max 9 (UA DEN-FLL nonstop) and it doesn’t show as an option.
It shows up for me on the website with that origin and destination:
<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/a3c1ad14-5694-40c9-b64c-425f055b480b.png">
A bit of clickbait. Yes they’ve added the option to filter out 737 Max 9, but also a bunch of older Boeing and Airbus planes
I just checked this myself:
<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/501ed2b5-3972-40e2-a780-0f18af78579f.png">
But is the option to filter by plane model itself new?
If you’re adding a filter so people can avoid a certain plane, it makes sense to add more than one model of plane.
You’re asking a good question, but I don’t have the answer. I don’t usually use Kayak.
There’s more than just safety reasons to avoid specific model of plane. While both are Boeing, a First Class seat on a United 737 (of any variety) is a subpar experience compared to a First Class seat on a United 787. If you’re making a long trip and paying the top dollar for that, filtering out the 737s and A320 planes makes a lot of sense.
The last few incidents with the MAX series has me on edge with them. I fly planes myself (GA) and am an aviation geek. It’s only 3 incidents but it seems like they rushed the MAX out too quickly to compete with Airbus. I could be really wrong.
The MAX 8 series was the one where they had additional software to correct the climb and this caused two accidents of total loss in passenger planes Lion Air Flight 610 and Ethiopians Flight 302.
Then we have the MAX 9 that had a door blow off because of a missing door plug. Thankfully, no deaths and only minor injuries.
I have a flight in a MAX 7 in a couple of weeks. 🙃
That plane hasn’t even been certified. I guess Aeromexico got a good deal on planes that were supposed to be delivered to Southwest
For what it’s worth… Neither the FAA nor ICAO certify Boeing… Boeing certifies themselves!
In all honesty, you should be good to go. FAA and aviation companies have made the required changes and updates.
If Boeing were extremely smart, they would replace the 737 with a net new design serving the same market segment. The 737 just sits too low to the ground. The giant LEAP engines were shoehorned on where they shouldn’t have been and two planes full of people are dead because of it. With the open rotor engines likely to be the next evolution, I’m not even sure they couldn’t put those on the 737.
Add in that the 737-900ER has the same door plug design, it makes me wonder if it is rational to fear the Max 9 specifically. I would actually prefer to fly a max 9 that was forced to have a recent inspection instead of the older 737-900ER that recently had scrutiny for the same door if my fear was the door plug itself.
Dude I’ve never been on an A380 this may be my chance
I don’t want to filter out the max8/max8 planes because of bad pitot tubes or blowouts or nosedives.
I want to filter them out because even on a good day they’re horribly appointed terrible airplanes with absolutely nothing redeeming about them.
And I fly the fancy seats.
The fact they even HAVE a configuration where the back loo is right next to the galley with an open-air American-style bathroom partition separating the two, that should get someone arrested.
I thought generally the configuration of seats and galleys and toilets was up to the airline and they were pretty much modular?
I was just thinking about this lastnight; I don’t fly often, but next time I do, I’ll be paying attention to which plane is actually used and avoiding the max.
I’ve never paid any attention to the plane model before.
Boeing fucked up pretty big with this plane if even those that pretty much never fly are thinking this way.
Boeing is literally making planes that don’t fly.
They don’t deserve to be in business.
Too bad if you’re already booked and the airline company changes the plane on you…
Genuine question. Could somebody legally demand a refund at that point the flight was different than sold as?
My guess is most airlines have clauses in their terms and conditions that allow them to change the aircraft type without prior notice. Pretty sure their lawyers would argue that this is considered a management right for operational reasons.
But I’m no expert 🙃
No. The “Contract of Carriage” that airlines create between you and them when you buy a ticket explicitly disclaims any liability for stuff like that. Delta’s for domestic flights has, under “Rule 2”, the following:
Every airline has basically the same contract. They can do whatever the fuck they want as long as they get you from A to B. They don’t even have to use a plane, or get you there on time.
Wouldn’t the lawsuit be against Kayak for false advertisement or something?
If people start choosing their flights based on aircraft type, it seems like the airline could just list all flights as the “good” aircraft and then automatically change it to the “bad” aircraft close to the departure date.
I don’t see the 737 Max being taken off the market even with these options and rebranding wont help as airlines will still list the new model which will be publicly announced by Boeing. So what’s the market adjustment going to be? Cheaper fare? I can honestly see people surging to buy a seat on this deathcraft if prices fall enough. It’ll be like choosing between organic and pesticide-riddled.
I will just drive my Tesla instead. So much safer.
When being ironic, don’t forget of Poe’s Law
People on lemmy are smart, they will get it. Right?
Some people on lemmy are smart, likely a higher ratio than many other sites, but there’s still a ridiculous surplus of fools
And all those smart people still have incredibly stupid opinions outside their areas of expertise. Everyone is a moron in the wrong context.
I’d posit a well rounded education doesn’t necessarily agree with that. You don’t need a professional education in a topic to be able to provide a decent opinion, it’s just that many people opt not to work on their own educations and prefer to be spoon fed materials, and it’s this behaviour that produces morons in almost every context, rather than individuals that have problematic views in a few topics.
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thought you were serious for a second, for those who aren’t getting the joke, driving your car is thousands of times more dangerous than taking a plane flight
But all those articles about Boeing issues will get more people to drive. It’s ironic how fighting for higher flying safety standards can kill people. The surplus in car crash fatalities in the months after 9/11 was higher than the number of passengers on all the planes involved.
We need more trains in North America. From my experience between planes, trains, and automobiles (and boats) trains have been the best experience.
“Knocks on wood”. Japan’s bullet trains have zero fatalities after more than 60 years of service. Trains are the absolute safest if managed properly.
I’m one of those people that likes to get a window seat and occasionally check out the views and marvel at what is really going on at that moment.
But the flying experience sucks. If there was an option to chill in a comfy train to replace short and medium flights, I would be right there with you.
They’d also be the easiest to make self-driving.
Don’t want to deal with things like lane changes, identifying traffic signals, erratic drivers, etc? Just focus on self driving trains instead. They go back and forth on a set path, on a set schedule, and can automatically watch for things like people/animals/debris on the tracks, electronically receive stop/go signals, etc…
All the focus is on self-driving cars, when it really should be on trains.
It really is insane how many people’s perception of safety is so completely opposite to reality.
Idk man I see this statistic all the time but you might survive a car crash but if you fall from a metal tube in the sky you are most likely dead as fuck. I think crashes happen lessoften but when you do crash in a plane theres usually zero survivors
It’s not even close. Passenger cars crash so much more frequently than planes (and other forms of transportation) that the rates of death are much higher.
https://injuryfacts.nsc.org/home-and-community/safety-topics/deaths-by-transportation-mode/
There are stats about fatalities you know? Not just number of incidents. Cars are orders of magnitude more dangerous in those stats as well.
You are the reason casinos make money.
Ok ok lol I can see why you’d say this so let me frame it another way. I’ve personally been in a car crash before (two), and I survived. Do you know one single person personally yourself who has survived a plane crash? What about two of them? Now what about car crashes? I bet you know at least one person who has survived a car crash, right?
I know more people that have died in car crashes (2, in separate instances, and one person that died in a motorcycle accident) than people who have died in plane crashes (0).
But that doesn’t actually matter, because a) anecdotal evidence means very little, if not nothing when considering the scale of transportation industries and b) the numbers don’t lie. Since 1970, 85,555 people have died in fatal aviation incidents. Around 100,000 people die or are disabled in car accidents every single month.
Your misunderstanding of statistics and probability and your idea that because the concept of a minor car accident exists, it nullifies the fact that they are dangerous, is just wrong.
I came back to find this comment. How do you feel about flying now? Make sure it’s not a Boeing amirite?
I am an airframe and powerplant certified mechanic, I worked on 737NGs for years as well as a320/1/neo, etc.
I know more about aviation than you, I know more about plane crashes than you.
Hey if all that is true then yes you 100 percent do know more than I do about it that’s no question lol just poking at it again because of the news with Boeing killing that guy and the tons of problems they’ve found them to have and they’re still up there zipping around like nothing is happening.
I don’t think I have ever seen a bolt randomly fall off my car.
And have you ever seen a bolt fall off a plane you were flying on?
Can’t say that I have but it is not really comparable since I would notice random ass fucking bolts in my driveway.
Ah yes, the location where your car experiences the most movement and vibrations and is most likely to lose a bolt: parked in your driveway. 🤦♀️
Where are Boeing planes losing bolts now? On the runway.
You work for them or something?
What an inane and pointless argument. (All of you)
And your comment differs…how exactly?
I called out something stupid you said, so I must be a shill 🙄
I said nothing stupid. Random bolts are not falling off my car. You are the one coming up with excuses for Boeing
Look. A few incidents happen close together, and everyone loses their damn mind and freaks out, saying they’ll never use those aircraft again, even though 99.999% of the time, it’s one of the safest ways to travel. It’s extremely silly. This shit is a statistical anomaly.
At the end of the day, some of their aircraft have been grounded for investigation, and that’s good. This will lead to it being even safer. I hope this also leads to regulatory change, resulting in Boeing no longer being responsible for themselves meeting safety standards.
But good lord people freaking out over a handful of incidences that will almost certainly never happen to them are just appealing to irrational fear.
I saw a cockroach in my kitchen. Killed it. Since I have only seen one I should assume it was a statistical anomaly and there isn’t a hundred hidden ones I didn’t see.
I have been in industrial/infrastructure way too long. When you see things like this there are problems you aren’t seeing. And I find your attitude grossly irresponsible. You don’t wait until the problem grows and people start dying in massive amounts before you decide to fix a problem, especially when the problem is tightening a fucking bolt. This isn’t some crazy black swan event know one coildnhsve foreseen. It is applying torque for the right amount of time to a bolt.
Boeing has been having issues for a very long time. And it has all been the result of their short term cost only focused structure. Kept cutting corners, kept refusing to invent, kept on outsourcing to save money. And now we are seeing the results of it. Maybe they should go back to make things that fly well instead of being a company that knows how to temporarily inflate their stock price well.
How many more incidents need to keep happening before you will stop hail corporate them?
Where did I say this? I said it’s good they’re being scrutinized. I said hopefully it would lead to better regulation and higher safety standards.
I’m talking about on an individual level, it’s ridiculous to appeal to fear and say you’re avoiding this thing forever because of a couple rare incidents that almost certainly won’t affect you, especially while we’re moving in the right direction in regards to overall safety. I hope this series of events results in a crackdown that whips Boeing into shape.
You’re discussing in bad faith. Stop it.
Which one of us is now lying?
“and say you’re avoiding this thing forever”
Did I say that?
In terms of speech you plan to give to Congress when you beg for a bailout I think this can be improved.
I’m done talking to you. You clearly do not have either the skills or desire to have a level-headed, productive conversation. Cheers mate.
Save your breath for the bailout begging
If it’s not Boeing then who? Santoclose? Airbus? China?
Obviously they fucked up. Unfortunately they are the competition. This is what happens when there’s a monopoly.
I say, fuck Google and Amazon and get those monopolies in check.
Airbus. Easy answer. I’d rather fly on an A320 than a 737 anyway, especially an A320neo vs 737max.
Obviously Airbus, who make better planes. Boeing certainly don’t have a monopoly, take a look on Flightradar. Airbus are killing it, especially in EU.
Why not Airbus? They’re the largest manufacturer in the world by market share. Boeing is not a monopoly.
You lack perspective. I’m literally sitting in an office looking out to the big ass Boeing facility right here. Like imagine me just walking over and telling them “hey you don’t know how to make airplanes”. That’s a fucking retarded comment. As much as I don’t like the company…well more like I’m just ambivalent about them since I have no business with them and they don’t affect my every day life in a direct way…other than food, deliveries and people I talk to, yeah they, Boeing are important to the local and the national economy. So it’s short sighted to say let’s shit down the company. If you were an engineer and got a letter accepting you for a position at Boeing, you would be thrilled to accept. The technology and know how you would earn would be a once in a lifetime experience…but somehow they can’t make airplanes? No fuckin way. It’s their management. Change management.
Did you reply to the wrong comment or something?
I didn’t say anything about Boeing not being able to make aeroplanes. Only a note of surprise that the parent comment would dismiss Airbus as an alternative manufacturer of aeroplanes when they are the largest manufacturer of aeroplanes in the world.
I’m stoked to hear that you live near a Boeing factory though. That must be very exciting for you.
Yeah, imagine thinking… hmmm is that a plane? Or a falling tire? Or a safety door?
My first thought after the door incident was that I hope this brings the price down of air travel, looks like that’s happening
I dunno I would still fly on a Boeing for a discount
When every single incident makes national news, yeah, they’re pretty damn safe still. I’ll take the cheap tickets, thanks.
How about just Boeing entirely? The Max planes have been problematic, but what about the 757’s having doors blow open mid flight or missing bolts or loose bolts? The issue with Boeing is getting so bad, Bombardier in Canada is starting to actually do business again.
Not to give Boeing any slack but what 757 had it’s door blown open? The only one I can find was DHL 757 which had its cargo door open during flight. Boeing had nothing to do with that incident as the plane originally left the factory as a passenger jet. Later in the aircraft’s life it was converted into a freighter by Precision Conversions LLC. This wasn’t even a door plug situation like with AS1282 as the conversion process preformed by Precision Conversions LLC requires cutting a rather large hole in the fuselage for the cargo door. The other thing is Boeing hasn’t produced a 757 since 2004, any manufacturering defect thats made it twenty years before causing issues is pretty impressive.
Also bombardier currently only makes business jets. The closest plane bombardier has ever made to competing with Boeing was the C series however those jets were designed for regional flights which is a sector of the industry Boeing doesn’t really compete in outside of the 737 max 7. On top of that because of shady deals bombardier orchestrated Boeing got very scared and lobbied the department of commerce to enact a 292% import tariff on the C series. Due to the tariffs Bombardier ended up completely selling the C series to airbus in 2020 who rebranded it to the A220.