Airfare, departure times, flight duration — these are common considerations for travelers looking to book a flight.
But now, more are looking at a new factor: the aircraft itself.
One in five travelers said they are doing more research on which plane to fly on before booking, while slightly more (22%) said they are cutting back on air travel for the rest of the year, according to a June survey by digital analytics company Quantum Metric.
Overall, 55% of travelers said they have changed the way they book flights because of recent aircraft and airline news, the survey found.
The investigation did not directly mention Boeing, but a steady stream of media coverage about the company — from quality control to business ethics — has dominated headlines since a door panel blew off an Alaska Airlines flight on Jan. 5, 2024.
Those stories shifted consumer focus to the Boeing aircraft, something travelers weren’t used to paying attention to, said Danielle Harvey, global vice president and head of travel and hospitality strategy at Quantum Metric.
“Our research concludes that fliers are doing more research to understand and potentially avoid Boeing aircraft,” he said.
The survey also showed that 13% of respondents avoid discount airlines to feel safer about 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 discount carriers operating Airbus (A320) than Boeing (737) especially in Asia,” he said. “And Boeing’s issues, of course, affect all airlines regardless of their business model.”
Fears up, risks down
As disturbing as the recent headlines for Boeing perhaps, aviation safety is improving by the decade, according to Arnold Barnett, a professor of statistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and co-author of a research paper on the dangers of commercial aviation.
The paper, published in the Journal of Air Transport Management in August, reports that the risk of dying on a commercial flight worldwide was 1 per 13.7 million passenger boardings from 2018 to 2022 — a significant improvement from the previous decade and far from One death for every 350,000 boardings that occurred between 1968-1977.
Commercial safety standards can be assessed by a variety of metrics—from miles flow to flight hours—but according to MIT News, Barnett chose “deaths per passenger boarding” because it answers a simple question: If you have a boarding pass for a flight, what are the chances of dying?
Barnett suggests that several factors have made flying safer, according to MIT News, including “technological advances such as collision avoidance systems on airplanes, extensive training and rigorous work by agencies such as the US Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board ».
However, there are geographical disparities, according to the report, which divides the world into three levels when it comes to flight safety:
- Tier 1: United States, European Union and other parts 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 United Arab Emirates
- Tier 3: Any other country
For Tier 1 and Tier 2, the risk of death for flights between 2018-22 drops to 1 per 80 million passenger boardings, according to MIT researchers.
In Tier 3 countries, the risks of death were 36 times higher than those in Tier 1 countries in 2018-2022, according to the report. But even among those countries, deaths per boarding nearly halved during that time period, Barnett noted.
The study is a historical analysis of commercial flight safety, which does not predict how Boeing’s issues may play out in the future.
But Barnett showed he is confident about the future of commercial aviation.
“While the Alaska Airlines incident was certainly an emergency, the pilots responded immediately and landed the plane safely. So it shows that even when things go horribly wrong, other elements of the aviation safety system usually prevent disaster.” , he said. CNBC Travel.
“In full view, the incident says more about the safety of flight than it does about its dangers,” he said.
Because it’s hard to avoid Boeing
Although competition between airlines is fierce, aircraft manufacturing has long been dominated by the United States’ Boeing Company and its European rival, Airbus. Together, the two companies make almost all major passenger aircraft.
Thus, it is possible to avoid aircraft manufactured by Boeing, but not necessarily easy. However, a number of platforms, from Kayak to Alternative Airlines, allow travelers to filter airline flights, an option added after two Boeing 737 Max planes crashed within a six-month period in 2018 and 2019.
Among those who want to fly only Airbus or who aim to avoid Boeing’s 737 Max jet, some will find it easier than others, Harvey said.
“Some airlines have a significant number of Boeing aircraft in their fleet, so it could mean people will have to switch airlines,” he said. “For the average traveler, this is not a problem, but for frequent travelers who are working towards status, this can be less attractive and therefore more difficult to do.”
However, nothing is guaranteed.
After Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crashed on March 10, 2019, I paid an extra four figures to fly my family from Singapore to the United States to avoid traveling on a Boeing 737 Max.
Before the departure date, the airline sent emails with minor changes to the departure time and another change that previously wouldn’t have been an issue: a change in aircraft.
The new plane? A Boeing 737 Max.
