Airfare, departure time, flight distance – these are the factors that travelers typically consider when booking a flight.
But now, more people are focusing on a new factor: the plane itself.
According to a survey conducted in June, one in five travelers said they would do more research on potential flights before booking, while slightly more travelers (22%) said they would do more research during the remainder of the year Restrictions on air travel. Digital analytics company Quantum Metric.
Overall, 55% of travelers said they had changed the way they book flights because of recent news about planes and airlines, the survey showed.
The investigation did not mention Boeing directly, but There is a steady stream of media reports about the company From quality control to business ethos, these are the things that have been dominating the headlines since the door panels of an Alaska Airlines flight exploded on January 5, 2024.
Danielle Harvey, global vice president and head of travel and hospitality strategy at Quantum Metric, said these stories are drawing consumer attention to Boeing aircraft that travelers have not paid attention to in the past.
“Our research shows that passengers are doing more research to learn about and potentially avoid Boeing aircraft,” she said.
The survey also revealed that 13% of respondents are avoiding discount airlines to feel safer flying.
But that doesn’t really make sense, said Brendan Sobie, an independent aviation analyst and founder of Sobie Aviation.
“First of all, there are more low-cost airlines operating Airbus (A320) than Boeing (737), especially in Asia,” he said. “Of course, the Boeing issue affects all airlines, regardless of their business model.”
Fear rises, risk falls
As disturbing as the recent headlines about Boeing are Arnold Barnett, a statistics professor at MIT, said aviation safety could improve within a decade. Research paper on commercial flight risks.
The paper, published in the Journal of Air Transport Management in August, found that from 2018 to 2022, the global risk of death on commercial flights was 1 in every 13.7 million passengers – an increase from the previous decade A significant improvement from 1968 to 1977, when there was one death for every 350,000 boardings.
Commercial safety standards can be assessed by a variety of metrics — from mileage traffic to flight time — but according to MIT News , Barnett chose “number of fatalities per passenger boarding” because it answered A simple question: If you had a boarding pass for a flight, how many times would you die?
According to MIT News, Barnett believes that several factors have made flying safer, including “technological advances such as collision avoidance systems on aircraft; extensive training; and the FAA and state The rigorous work of organizations like the Transportation Safety Board.
But the report points out that geographical differences exist, dividing the world into three levels when it comes to flight safety:
- Tier 1: United States, EU and rest of Europe, plus Australia, Canada, China, Israel, Japan and New Zealand
- Tier 2: Bahrain, Bosnia, Brazil, Brunei, Chile, Hong Kong, India, Jordan, Kuwait, Malaysia, Mexico, Philippines, Qatar, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates
- Level 3: All other countries
For Levels 1 and 2, the risk of death on flights between 2018-22 dropped to one death per 80 million boarding passengers, the MIT researchers said.
The report said that between 2018 and 2022, the risk of death in Tier 3 countries was 36 times higher than in Tier 1 countries. But Barnett noted that even among these countries, the number of deaths per flight has almost halved during this time.
The study is a historical analysis of commercial flight safety and does not predict how Boeing’s problems may develop in the future.
But Barnett said he is confident about the future of commercial aviation.
“While the Alaska Airlines incident was indeed an emergency, the pilots responded immediately and landed the aircraft safely. Therefore, this incident demonstrates that even when something goes horribly wrong, other elements of the aviation safety system can often avert disaster,” he told us CNBC Travel.
“Taken as a whole, this incident says more about the safety of flying than the dangers of it,” he said.
Why it’s so hard to avoid Boeing
Although competition among airlines is fierce, aircraft manufacturing has long been dominated by America’s century-old Boeing Co and its European rival Airbus. The two companies jointly produce nearly all large passenger aircraft.
Therefore, it is possible to avoid using planes made by Boeing, But not necessarily easy. However, many platforms from Kayak to Alternative Airlines allow travelers to filter flights by aircraft, an option added after the crashes of two Boeing 737 Max jets within six months of 2018 and 2019.
For those who just want to fly Airbus or plan to avoid the Boeing 737 Max, some will find it easier than others, Harvey said.
“Some airlines have a lot of Boeing aircraft in their fleets, so that may mean people are going to have to switch airlines,” she said. “For the average traveler, this isn’t a problem, but for frequent travelers who are striving to establish status, it may be less attractive and therefore more difficult to do.”
Still, nothing is guaranteed.
back Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 After the crash on March 10, 2019, I paid an extra four figures to fly my family from Singapore to the United States to avoid traveling on the Boeing 737 Max.
Prior to the departure date, the airline emailed a minor change to the departure time, as well as another change that had not been an issue before: the aircraft change.
New plane? Boeing 737 Max.
