Would you fly on a 737 MAX plane?

yes, having looked it up it’s not illegal as in a crime but it could be unlawful as against the airline’s own terms and conditions which often prohibit filming crew and other passengers. Possibly also an element of interfering with the briefing/not paying attention which could compromise safety, and that gives cc discretion to tell you to stop. Then acting disruptively by disobeying crew instructions would be criminal and that would be the reason police could get involved. So huge stretch for the cc member to say “prove you deleted or I call police”.

I won't fly on a 737 Max.

As of February 2024, there have been a total of 529 aviation accidents and incidents involving all 737 aircraft (not all are notable enough for inclusion on this list), which have resulted in a total of 5,779 fatalities and 234 hull losses

Source here:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_accidents_and_incidents_involving_the_Boeing_737

@backinthebox Good answers which I can very much appreciate as to how correct they are.

If for any reason, the aircraft is tech, crew are out of hours plus goodness knows many other reasons, there may be a change of aircraft type. You could book a holiday on an Airbus and actually fly on a Boeing.

You can find accidents for any aircraft type if you look for them. The rudder issue with B737 happened far more frequently than ever was publicised, yet the B737 still remains the most flown aircraft type in the world.

Book the holiday/flight which works for you but understand things can change.

Is it illegal? I mean it's so standard I can't imagine there's an issue with the content of the safety briefing, more about filming people without their consent and potentially posting the video online.

I was on a plane last week. A teenage passenger behind me started to film the safety briefing. The cabin crew member stopped the briefing, told him to put the phone down and then marched over and told him to prove that it was deleted, including from deleted items. When the teen (who did not say a word) hesitated briefly trying to find their deleted items folder the cabin crew member said “unless I see you remove that from your deleted items folder right now I will have no option but to call the police to arrest you on landing at our destination”.

Now, I am well aware that airlines can and should be able to have disruptive passengers detained by police. But the speed at which the situation escalated was insane. The kid didn’t know it was illegal to film and had stopped straight away.

Husband is in that industry (aircraft safety) and he said he wouldn't have an issue

I wouldn't as there are real issues with this particular Boeing. One airline that does not use the Max is Easyjet.

To be fair to @Rollinroller , the fault lies with the cabin crew and airport staff who told her that offloading everyone was “standard practice”. She’s only telling us that this is what another aviation professional told her, rather than insisting herself that is standard practice.

Funnily enough, my job (insurance related) often involves having to review a sequence of events when an incident happens on an aircraft. It’s amazing how much misinformation is bandied about in the cabin and by ground staff. On the other hand, pilots are usually pretty accurate.

@backinthebox

Did we wear our abayas in rakish fashion in Jeddah?

Morning,

Not me boss, thinking back that was one of the very few places on the network I managed to completely avoid…😄

ATB, remember to keep the blue bit at the top of the screen.

This thread is gold! 🤣 I don’t know who @notimagain is in RL, but I suspect we have shared a flight deck at some point in our past. (Did we wear our abayas in rakish fashion in Jeddah?) She’s the only person here, to my knowledge, with more aviation experience than me. I find it hilarious that she is being lectured on the finer points on aviation practices.

@Rollinroller, it is not industry standard to offload everyone and reload them all. However, we don’t know the full circumstances of your flight (and I would hazard a guess that you don’t know the full circumstances either) so your’s may be an unusual situation. This is not to say this occurs in all situations. It’s a bit off to patronise an experienced airline pilot explaining this to you though.

For those asking for an AMA, I did one once. It wasn’t as exciting as you might think. 🤣

@backinthebox

Slightly OT but I am another who would love to read an AMA from you.

@backinthebox I know all that. I'm an aviation enthusiast and hold a PPL. Sure, it's not a commercial licence, but it's a just a personal feeling. I'd rather not fly on a MAX aircraft if I had the option not to.

I think two fatal crashes in close succession followed by the spare door blowing out is enough to knock the general public's confidence in an aircraft for a time. I know the issues with MCAS have been addressed, but we as passengers can still have a gut feeling.

Much like how after Malaysian Airlines offered refunds on tickets after MH370 and MH17. I remember them saying "we'd understand if you didn't want to fly with us". Confidence was knocked, even though MH17 was not their fault at all.

I’m sure it was, I’m sure it is what you were told, it may have been that airline’s policy.

I’m not patronizing you, just pointing out that offloading everybody and putting them through security because one passenger gets on and then off again, for whatever reason, is not, well most certainly was not in my time flying, industry standard.

You can attempt to patronise me as much as you like. This is what happened.

@Rollinroller

The crew and airport staff said it was standard

That might be what you were told but I can promise you it’s definitely not (or certainly was not) standard across the industry….

As far as an individual carrying a dangerous device into that cabin goes…have a think about the whole scenario.

Getting hold bags off if somebody who chooses not to travel is another matter.

It happened to me on a flight that was delayed after boarding for over 2 hours and guy decided he wanted to get off. It was one of the reasons they gave to try and convince him to stay on the plane. The crew and airport staff said it was standard as they visor the concern is someone has boarded, put a dangerous device on the plane, then got off again. They said even if the person gets off because of a medical emergency they do it. It made total sense to me that this would be standard and I can’t imagine it doesn’t always happen.

That’s not always the case.

Also it wouldn’t just be dropping him at the terminal. If a passenger gets off after boarding, everyone has to deplane and go through security checks again.

Ex-Boeing pilots POV, so health warning that I don’t have as much of an inside track as some current Boeing pilots do.

Yes there are are definitely problems with the recent culture at Boeing, yes, there are stones that need overturning and people do have questions to answer but there are also more than a few problems with the way this is being presented to the general public ATM:

Firstly any incident involving a Boeing gets massive attention in the MSM..but if you follow general aviation newsfeeds you’ll see there’s a spread of incidents across all type - e.g. the BA Airbus diversion into (?) Amsterdam a few days back with smoke/fumes didn’t generate that much newsprint. At a daily level there are diversions/returns to base on types various that don’t make the news at all, because they are not newsworthy because there’s no Boeing involvement.

Secondly even if a Boeing aircraft is involved in an incident that is nowt to do with them (runway overrun - Africa recently, wheel falling off a 777 elsewhere a month or two back) it’s a “ Another Boeing …” headline and portrayed as a Boeing problem, rather than a downstream human factors issue or airline maintenance issue.

Thirdly incidents involving aircraft that were designed well before any culture change (e.g. 767, 747, 777) tend to get caught up in the generic “oh look another problem with Boeings….”

As for the Max, as others have now probably the most checked airline in the inventory.

As for avoiding one…..good luck with that, they’re increasingly common…and with the amount of wet leasing going on ATM there’s a fair chance what you see on your booking might not be what arrives at the gate, so the determined avoiders had better be good at aircraft recognition.

@Yellowhammer09 “Classic 737? Absolutely.” Would that be the 737 of the rudder hard over flaw, resulting in 2 fatal crashes and several other documented serious incidents? At what point did this aircraft type, which was subjected to at least as much scrutiny and suspicion at the time, morph from ‘death trap’ to ‘safe option?’ It was never grounded and carried on flying, although hardovers continued to happen while they investigated and resolved the reasons for the issue. Comparisons can be made between the 737 rudder issues of the 90s and the 737 MAX issues of its early years. (I have about 1800hrs experience on the 737 btw, gained a couple of years after the 2 crashes.)

When an aircraft crashes, for whatever reason, it is not just the manufacturer alone who investigates and follows up. The airline, aviation authorities of the country of origin, and country of incident all get involved. An aircraft is not simply deemed safe or unsafe due to anecdotal evidence. The corporate practices of the manufacturer can be very dodgy indeed (as Boeing’s are atm) but this doesn’t change the very stringent external testing that an aircraft must go through before being considered acceptable for flight.

A crash provokes an emotional response - we all know that air transport is relatively safe but crashes do happen, just as we know that we are probably ok driving our cars but crashes do happen. This knowledge, and acceptance to some extent, of rare crashes does not make it any less shocking when a crash occurs. It does not mean though that the only solution is to never fly that entire aircraft again. Investigations are carried out and appropriate fixes made.

Many of the big crashes of recent years have been as a result of the increase in automation and the way cockpit information is presented to and interpreted by pilots. This is not restricted to just Boeing, although they are the manufacturer atm who has introduced automation that has been cited as part of the problem. The Air France disaster, with the loss of an A330 hull and over 200 people, is the classic example of this. The response of manufacturers, aviation authorities and airlines is to increase training and pilot awareness of such matters, as well as thorough investigation into the aircraft itself. This is what is happening now with the Boeing 737 MAX and the situation today with them is very different to the situation 5 years ago.

Now, @BlessedKali, you still haven’t said what your experience and qualifications are. Clearly you think I am undereducated in the matter compared to your lofty knowledge - you’ve actually told me to do my research. But I’ve laid out where my information comes from (it’s actually my paid job to ‘do my research.’) What about you?

I am a very nervous flier (didn't fly for 10 years until a new partner got me back on one) and went to Sri-Lanka in Feb, I googled to find out what plane it was and would not have flown on a max.

And yes, I'd fly on one, to answer your question.

I think their safety record is 3 fatalities per million flights. I got that info from reddit 😆

For £120 more I'd probably pay to fly on a non-MAX aircraft. I think Boeing have had some serious safety concerns for a while around the MAX fleet but mostly I'd miss an Airbus PTU sound.

I'd happily travel on a non-MAX Boeing aircraft. Classic 737? Absolutely. There's just something about the MAXes that doesn't sit right with me.

And in the small print in any reservation confirmation it will say that the airline reserves the right to substitute an aircraft should it be necessary. There’s all sorts of reasons why they do that - the intended plane is delayed on its inbound journey, the intended plane is found to have a technical fault, not enough tickets sold to warrant a plane of that size so a smaller one is used, no available pilot trained for that aircraft due to staff shortages (sickness, strike, etc). Buying a ticket does not guarantee you will be on that plane. Or in that seat. It’s merely a contract to take from A to B, nothing more.