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Comment by neilv | Hacker News Reader

Will this prompt some fliers to avoid 737-anything or Boeing-anything?

Definitely not. Time and time again, it’s been proven people only care about the cheapest ticket price. You can nickel and dime them, treat them like cattle, and physically beat your customers and they will continue to use your airline and airplanes.

I wonder what the true market equilibrium between ticket price and not dying would be if the FAA let people find their own balance. If a life is valued at $2,000,000 then people would accept a one in a million chance of dying for $2 off their ticket.

People would make irrational choices, certainly in deciding whether to drive or fly. I don't think the market would come up with an equilibrium price for a micromort: at best you could find an equilibrium price for taking some risk of dying in a particular way such as a high-profile airliner crash.

Also, it's hard for even an expert to estimate the current chance of a 737 MAX flight crashing: historically it's around 1 in 5,000, but if they were cleared to fly tomorrow it's hard to say if the rate would be 1 in 10,000 or 1 in 1 million.

737 Max? Yes. Others? No. The safety record of the 737-non-maxes has been stellar for the combined flight-hours of the fleet. I'm happy to stake my life on it.

Despite the rubber-stamping of the 737-MAX, I view these as separate.

There is one reason to avoid the older 737s if you have a choice and all other factors are equal: they're kinda shitty airplanes to fly on, because they're crappy old designs. Sure, they're very safe, but they're just not very nice to fly on; the more modern Airbus designs are more comfortable for passengers.

I'll be avoiding the 737 Max / 737 Max rebranding

It prompted this flyer to.

Will now avoid all 737 - the 737 MAX is clearly not a good design with the forward engines.

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