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Comment by rburhum | Hacker News Reader

It is not that. It is that regardless if the plane is "fixed" or not, many frequent travelers will refuse to fly on a 737 MAX from now on.

Last year I took 73 flights. At least three of those were on a MAX. I profusely refuse to get on one of those, regardless if they are fixed or not.

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I have been thinking about how to implement that after the MAX starts flying again. Flight search interfaces don’t seem to filter on equipment. And of course, equipment gets changed at times, so you may book one aircraft and have a different one swapped in on the ramp. I wonder if after you have checked in, and the airline swaps in a MAX, if you can get credit for your ticket if you refuse to board a MAX? I would guess not. (Yes, I know airlines try to avoid changing equipment because it causes reseating hassle and crew scheduling hassle. But it does happen)

Seems like you could either target routes that don't fly 737s at all, just much bigger or much smaller planes. Or you could stick to carriers that don't own any 737 MAX 8's such as Amtrak and SNCF.

There are airlines with an all Airbus fleet, you don't have to stick to travelling by rail.

Delta Air Lines, Spirit, JetBlue, Allegiant... you’re not stuck to just rail.

It's too bad that the site where I have the greatest need for emoji is also the only one that doesn't support them.

> Flight search interfaces don’t seem to filter on equipment.

I suspect this is going to change as booking web sites can use that feature as a selling point.

Here in Australia just recently I booked a flight for mid December and was very surprised to see the type of aircraft listed on the bookings page.

Now that I have seen this information, I myself will be expecting to see this information and will happily change booking sites if required.

United.com shows the airplane for each flight.

> > Flight search interfaces don’t seem to filter on equipment.

> I suspect this is going to change as booking web sites can use that feature as a selling point.

I hope you are right. Google flights might add a filter. But will Southwest add it to their own site?

It may not filter on equipment, but they do show you what kind of plane you are flying when you are buying the ticket so you can decide right then if you want to buy something else instead.

Fleets are often completely from one manufacturer. For example, easyJet is all Airbus while Ryanair is all Boeing. I can reasonably easily avoid all Ryanair flights in favour of easyJet.

For ULCC, absolutely.

Big carriers have a mix - United, American Airlines, Lufthansa, Air France, Turkish Airlines, Korean Airlines, British Airways, etc.

I flew about the same, fortunately never on a MAX. That being said I'm in the same boat, you couldn't pay me enough money to take a ride on a plane that the pilot literally cannot fly without the MCAS system functioning perfectly.

Maybe I'm just blissfully ignorant to how bad all the planes in the air are... but I feel like pilots would be screaming bloody murder if they were all as bad as the MAX.

If the MCAS completely disengages, the plane is perfectly flyable under most conditions. It will just pitch up more than other planes in turns, which could be manually fixed by adjusting the trim. The MCAS system is set to automatically adjust the trim, and the crashes were caused by it doing so when there was no need.

>literally cannot fly without the MCAS system functioning perfectly.

This is not the problem. The aircraft's performance is within the bounds of "perfectly acceptable for what it is" but it is too different from the existing 737s in a particular area. If the portion of the MCAS that handles this particular area were just turned off the MAX would fly fine but it wouldn't be close enough to a 737 for anyone to say with a straight face that pilots can fly without retraining. This need for pilot compatibility lead to a faulty implementation of MCAS of which flies the plane into the ground in certain conditions.

Do you refuse to take a car to the airport?

If it was a 1978 Ford Pinto (one of the most unsafe cars ever made), you bet I would not get in it. The MAX is basically a Pinto for me.

That's a silly comparison. The risk of death from flying in a MAX is still wildly lower than the risk of dying in the safest car on a mile by mile basis.

I 100% agree that is a silly comparison. Just a reminder that you initially made the analogy, not me.

This is stupid; let people have their own values and convictions.

Also there is a train to most airports to avoid taking a car.

People are allowed to have their own convictions, I'm also allowed to call them stupid given they follow no data whatsoever.

You didn't call anyone stupid, you asked a passive aggressive question designed to demean without advancing any worldviews or assertions of your own. That's fucking stupid.

No you can't, not on HN. Please see the guidelines here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Only the cars that are subject to mandatory recalls.

After the recalls have been addressed?

Depends on if they cheated through the initial inspection. Of course mistakes happen, but Boeing explicitly bribed FAA.

That's quite an accusation. Do you have evidence for it?

By “addressed” what are you referring to wrt Boeing?

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