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In response,US regulators ordered the temporary grounding of 171 aircraft,all 737 Max 9s,to be inspected before they could fly again. Other carriers around the world,including Turkish Airlines,Aeromexico and United,grounded their fleets of 737 Max 9s. United has already found several cases of faults in its door plugs.
This comes after two horrific incidents,in 2018 and 2019,of Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft crashing: Lion Air flight 610,which plunged into the Java Sea soon after take-off from Jakarta,killing all 189 passengers and crew;and Ethiopian Airlines flight 302,which lost control shortly after take-off from Addis Ababa,killing all 157 on board.
After those incidents,the Boeing Company was rocked by further criticism stemming from investigations into its business practices,including allegations its corporate merger and restructure had led to a focus on profits over safety and overall quality.
Clearly,“if it ain’t Boeing,I ain’t going” doesn’t apply any more. In fact,there are probably plenty of people who think that if it ain’t Boeing,they feel much better about going.
Personally,I’m not particularly swayed either way. I’m one of those people who doesn’t tend to even check what sort of aircraft I will be flying on when I book a ticket. I’m the same as those people in front of me in that boarding queue in the US 15 years ago.
On long-haul flights,I’ll pay attention. Mostly because I want to fly in an A380. That’s nothing to do with safety,but rather space and comfort.
A Boeing 737 MAX 9 on the production floor at the company's manufacturing facility in Renton in the US.Credit:Bloomberg
On other journeys,however,I will generally have no idea what I’m flying on until I’m buckling my seatbelt and happen to notice the safety card in the seatback pocket. Oh,an A320? A Boeing 787? An Embraer 190? A De Havilland Dash 8? A McDonnell Douglas MD-82? Cool. Means basically nothing to me.
I’m sure there were plenty of people who vowed to avoid Boeing 737 Max 8s after those crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia,but have you actually stuck to that? I was a bit worried to begin with,but had completely forgotten until the door fell off a Max 9 a few days ago.
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Perhaps this is naive or maybe even foolhardy. And it’s probably surprising given many passionate travellers are also massive aviation geeks. I love an A380 as much as the next travel dork (and Airbus has been praised recently for its safety features,after a full planeload of people were ableto safely disembark JAL flight 516 after an A350’s collision and fire). But still,the type of aircraft I’m flying on generally means very little to me.
That may not be the case for other travellers in coming months,as Boeing attempts to recover its reputation from yet another hit.
And in Australia at least,Boeing aircraft are hard to avoid. The bulk of Virgin Australia’s fleet are Boeing 737-800s,with plenty of Max 8s and Max 10s due to be delivered in the next few years. Bonza’s entire fleet is 737 Max 8s (which Boeing has confirmed are not affected by the recent investigation into the Max 9s).
Qantas has a heap of 737-800s,though they’re being progressively replaced by Airbus 320s and 220s in the next few years;it also has 14 Boeing Dreamliners.
I won’t be worrying too much about the Boeing aircraft,though there’s no denying the travel world has shifted on its axis once again,the aircraft manufacturer so many people once placed their trust in having been shown again to be anything but trustworthy.
As with many other people:if it ain’t Boeing,I’m fine with going.