Would you fly on a Boeing 737 Max 8?

[Pupsandturtles]

They are approved in the US (and maybe some other places) and we are due to fly on one soon. They say the software issue has been fixed, but clearly, they can be wrong about safety. Other flights/ airlines are available but with less ideal flight times.

I don’t feel great about it. Would you go or switch to another airline?

No, I think they use a mix of 737 models.

am sure Tui use them

No. And I never will. And not even my aircraft engineer son, or my pilot son and son in law will ever convince me it’s ok.

Something that failed so badly straight out of the manufacturers should have been put to rest forever.

No. It was a massive fault in the design of the aircraft.

I work for a tour operator that often charters aircraft. We wouldn't charter 737 Max as we know our clients wouldn't want to fly on them.

It was both.

The design of the MAX (specifically the size and positioning of the newer generation engines) led to the aircraft having some undesirable handling characteristics in certain conditions...Boeing tried to get round the apparent problem with what turned out to be a very inadequate computer based system to remove the handling quirk, rather then a very very expensive complete redesign of the whole aircraft to resolve the problem aerodynamically.

The problem is supposedly fixed and to address the question posed by the OP realistically given the rate at which airlines are re-equipping their fleets ATM it's going to be increasingly hard to avoid the MAXs in their various iterations.

Also TBH given the amount of wet leasing that airlines do these days to cover shortfalls even with the best due diligence in the world there's a finite chance of turning up at the gate on the day and seeing you've got a MAX.

Both Boeing and the FAA, by certifying the 737Max to fly again, the presumption is the issue has been sorted. Would I fly on one - I would prefer to fly on another aircraft tbh.

The issue with choosing to fly on another type, is if the airline also flys the B737 Max - if there are techinical issues with the aircraft you were planned to fly on, you may find yourself on the Max anyway if there is a change of aircraft.

@schloss

"Both Boeing and the FAA, by certifying the 737Max to fly again, the presumption is the issue has been sorted. "

FWIW for those that are wondering about the "sorted" part of the problem:

As I understand it when the Max was introduced Boeing sold it as not being any different from earlier 737s, so no mention at all of the system (MCAS) that caused the problem in any of the crew manuals, no extra (costly) training for crews on failure modes that the new system could introduce, and most importantly the logic used to trigger operation of the system was vulnerable to a signal sensor reading incorrectly.

As I understand things now it's all in the books, crew now get appropriate training before flying the variant and the sensor logic has been made much more robust.

I have to say neither Boeing or the FAA have not come out of this at all well and I believe legal action is pending and/or on going

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ManeuveringCharacteristics_Augmentation_System

More in the news today about the Max.

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/boeing-urges-inspections-737-max-planes-possible-loose-bolt-rcna131555#

@StrawberryJellyBelly

TBF/for context - I haven't followed this story in detail but I do know it's isn't the first time a manufacturer has called for inspections to be done promptly across fleets because an operator somewhere has found a loose widget, bolt or flange and reported it back to Boeing/Airbus/Embraer or whoever......

The routine then is the manufacturer then pings out a notice to all operators saying a certain check or inspection needs to be done within a defined time scale (e.g. within next ten sectors, within next 100 flying hours).

Usually the public and media are completely unaware or not interested but seeing as the Max is involved this one is deemed a bit more newsworthy.

@notimagain thank you for that.

Aviation has been our family life and business for almost 50 years. I’m well up on things happening and the processes that then take place. There is just something about this aircraft though that I have a very bad feeling about and I will never fly on one. And no, getting to the gate and finding one waiting for me despite my efforts to give the Max a body swerve wouldn’t stop me from saying that I wasn’t boarding.

In fact I now know that a brand new aircraft I once asked to be offloaded from a good few years ago (before the disasters) due to a technical fault being discovered just before take off was a Max.

Our family life is so immersed in aviation, it’s all just so normal, every aspect of it, that I’m not ignoring my thoughts on this.

@StrawberryJellyBelly

Fair enough, each to their own.

FWIW I've similar time in the industry to your family, I flew aircraft for well over for over four decades, the majority of that time on Boeing products, though none of the 737 family.

As you will know with your history up until recently Boeing were known as a company that was engineer led, that all changed not for the better when it became more accountant driven with the move of the HQ to Chicago... maybe there will now start to be a shift back, who knows?

Anyhow my own take on the Max currently is I'd fly on it.

The MCAS issue is a known, with fixes in place and as far as the unrelated issue highlighted over the last few days I've certainly flown aircraft in the past that have been subject to Airworthiness Directives so I can't really get that worked up about that and fundamentally I certainly don't think the max is in some way cursed.

Not after todays Alaskan Airlines flight!

Yup no way

I thought this thread might regenerate....though of course the pedant in me has to point out that OP poses a question about people flying on the MAX 8, not the MAX 9, which was the sub variant involved in the incident yesterday...........so the door/door blanking configurations may well be different.

In any event it's going to be interesting to see what the investigation turns up but if this ends up being down to the build quality at Boeing then.....????

Well, in the end I put my foot down and changed our flight to an airline which doesn’t use the MAX. My husband of course thought I was ridiculous and hysterical. Feeling rather vindicated today- and of course relieved that nobody was hurt on Alaska Airlines. What a stroke of luck that nobody was sitting in the seat next to the panel that blew off.

plane was 2 months old apparently. Fingers crossed that Boeing can’t find someone else to blame this time. If you’ve watched Downfall, it’s disgusting how quick they were to blame the ‘foreign’ pilots who supposedly just didn’t know how to fly the MAX properly.

Out of interests sake does the aircraft type you did fly on appear anywhere on this list of the recent notable incidents:

https://avherald.com/h?list=&opt=1024

@notimagain that list doesn’t show the aircraft types.

we flew on a pretty standard aircraft that has, naturally, been involved in incidents over that past 30 years. None of them, however, due to fundamental flaws in its design.

Yes Ryanair pretty sure

that list doesn’t show the aircraft types.

It actually does but in Aviation coding....so apologies. FWIW if it's the initial is a B it's a Boeing if it's an A it's Airbus......you can bury into the coding deeper than it deeper but it's maybe not as useful as I thought

Point is whilst basically the last Max incident is obviously very serious (and the FAA have stepped in again tonight) if you've flown on pretty much anything worldwide recently you'll find the type has been involved an incident with some degree of seriousness, from trivial to fairly/very serious.

This is where from a passengers POV if you want to avoid a MAX it gets complicated.

AFAIK Ryanair have no 737 MAXs on the UK register.
.
However Ryanair Europe do have MAXs - 8 ....and they do operate into/out of the UK.

However, again AFAIK, those airframes don't have the blocked door configuration that was involved in the Alaskan incident....the Alaskan aircraft was a MAX 9 model...and as of this evening it's the MAX 9 that the FAA have under the microscope.

https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/faa-statement-temporary-grounding-certain-boeing-737-max-9-aircraft

To avoid being accused of singling out Ryanair I should point out I've just been reminded that TUI are another 737 MAX 8 user...they have several on the UK register, plus others based elsewhere in europe...

How do you even know what plane types you are flying on?? New anxiety unlocked!

OMG, the passenger video from inside the aircraft is terrifying. I can't imagine what would be going through your head looking at that massive hole, can you imagine sitting directly beside it? The wind, noise and turbulence must have been horrific too . The pilot sounded panicked when she told traffic controllers they needed to ' get down now'. (shudder)

Yep, timetables/websites can be meaningless at the booking stage (in fact often are).

Canny users of the tracking apps such as Flightradar might get a heads up on the day itself, leaving it to boarding when you can see the actual airframe most folks won't have a scooby do unless it's written on the airframe or they look up the registration.

The reality is unless something really dramatic happens in the near future MAXs in their various sub-variants are going to be into/out of UK airports in increasing numbers as the older variants get pensioned off.

For context it's maybe worth remembering that over the decades quite a few airliner types attracted headlines for all the wrong reasons when they were first introduced, and as an example for many years it was a case of "if it's not Boeing, I'm not going" when there were (generally unfounded) doubts expressed about the reliability of the Airbus product.