For the crew, things are a little different given that they are all day long, all year long in the same plane model, so those minuscule risks compound.
People are bad at conceptualising low probabilities. That’s why they play lottery!
Why do you think we should surrender the tiny amount of agency that we still have, in the face of corporate profit-driven deterioration?
For me, this isn't about a measured risk in relation to other known risks in my life (crossing the road, cycling, drinking alcohol). It's about removing a totally unnecessary risk caused by greed and corporate heedlessness.
A similar case: I stopped eating British Beef when a British minister fed his daughter a beefburger[0] to 'prove' it was "totally safe", during the 'Mad Cow Disease' (BSE) crisis in 1990. I wasn't significantly worried about contracting BSE at the time, but the lengths and efforts that the government went to, to convince people to eat more beef for 'patriotic' reasons, when the farmers had fed their cows on ground-up carcasses for economic gain, meant that my boycott was a small but meaningful expression of my own agency when faced by this sort of appalling behavior.
I feel the same way about Boeing, and about the greed of airlines (like RyanAir), that think only about profit and see passenger safety as an irritating distraction that is only important in terms of 'brand perception'.
[0] https://www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/bse-crisis-john-se...
What I am saying is that those respective risks are so tiny that they are immaterial, and not worth worrying about. If you want to spend energy making your trip safer, you should worry much more about what car model will drive you to or from the airport, or level of crime in public transports, etc.
These are not political reasons. I'm for many years now trying to avoid flying on the 737 MAX and 787. Not because I dislike the planes even as a passenger, or because I worry about crashing, or because I have a political agenda. I want to use the little bit of voting with the wallet I have. This is the core of how our system works.
I understand that in the grand scheme of things this is not really doing anything, but if a sufficient number of people make airlines uncomfortable they will increase the pressure on Boeing to improve their processes.
The current duopoly/monopoly on aircraft manufacturers is preventing innovation in the space and I do not appreciate this a single bit.
I hear this sentiment a lot. And logically, it is true. But maybe it's my cynic nature, but isn't this like counting on a natural disaster level of impossible? This is something which can happen but has happened in history very few times (I personally can't think of any instances, but there has to be some company ruined by a boycott). I am not saying you are wrong, but I find this a naive view.
Edit: Let me clarify a bit. I am not saying companies have not taken feedback through what sells and doesn't sell, that of course happens. But I don't know of many instances where individuals spontaneously or otherwise caused a company to change their internal structures and processes. The implication that consumers have a knob to finetune a company process is what I disagree with.
> I want to use the little bit of voting with the wallet I have.
Technically, voting with your wallet is a political statement, which you are sending to Boeing management and shareholders to make the world a tiny bit less profit-at-all-cost-driven.
It is interesting that people automatically equate "political" with party or country politics, which gives it a bad rep. When in fact it is a healthy thing if more people were to think and act like you and stand for their principles on issues however minor-sounding.
This must be why corporations are people in the US. Voting with your wallet is an economic statement, not a political one. It can be done for any reason, let alone an ideological one. Not letting your kid go bungee jumping because you feel it unsafe is not a political statement.
Bungee jumping is actually a great comparison, because it’s also an incredibly safe activity, with only two dozen or so people dying in this century.
To put it in comparable terms, and based on random Googling, bungee jumping is approx 2 micromorts, compared to swimming, which is 12, and flying, which is 2.1 per 30,000 miles flown.
I stopped buying El Monterrey frozen burritos last year. They removed some of the beef and replaced it with filler rice. I did not appreciate that cost-cutting, so I stopped giving them my money. It's not a political stance that I have here, it's an economic one. I don't like shrinkflation so I don't reward it.
I will refuse to buy any GM car because they made a decision to juice their subscription revenue. This has nothing to do with my political stance. It's an economic decision.
And so with the Boeing planes. They're obviously cutting corners in their safety department. The result is still a mode of travel that's really safe, but the way we got to that level of safety is by not cutting corners. I may decline to reward a company that has decided to trade a little of that hard-won safety margin for some better financial numbers.
There is a strange thing going on where any agency by individual citizen is called political. My efforts are somehow not a valid market activity, they are politics, and should not go too far.
But any political effort by business, for example to undermine consumer safety, is ‘just business’ or ‘free market’. They should not be judged for doing so.
Oxford: (political) "Of, belonging to, or concerned with the form, organization, and administration of a state, and with the regulation of its relations with other states." [1]
Webster: (political, (2)) "of, relating to, involving, or involved in politics and especially party politics" [2]
I would therefore interpret taking a principled stance because of concerns for personal safety as not political. As another example, OTOH, given party politics can be either pro or anti-union, boycotting Boeing (based on party politics) because it was pro or anti-union - would be political.
[1] https://www.oed.com/search/dictionary/?scope=Entries&q=polit...
Paying attention to planes and risks of other forms of transport are not mutually exclusive.
The industry average for plane crashes is 1 in 16.7M flights. The 737 MAX is 1 in 400,000.
This seems a lot worse than most people are making it out to be on here. It's close to 2 orders of magnitude worse than the industry average.
And if I'm doing my math right, you have a higher chance of dying getting aboard a 737 MAX than you do getting in your car (obviously, you're going to travel A LOT farther on the MAX than you would on an average car trip - so per mile it's still significantly safer than a car).
However, I think the issue with the 737 MAX is that it's been involved in several high profile catastrophic mistakes while only being in service for a few years. It's expected that a page in service for 20 years might have wear and tear that leads to issues... But brand new planes crashing back to back shortly after being released..
The stats on the Wikipedia page state that the MAX has 4 fatalities per 1 million flights, while the prior generation has 0.2 fatalities per million flights [1]. Of course, some if this is due to the two crashes right out the door, and if excluded, perhaps they are similar... But then this new door blowout issue occured... And after investigation multiple planes had the same issue (so it likely is a production issue, not an individual worker screwing up one time).
Overall I agree plane model should mean little to travelers... But the MAX is trying very hard to prove it's a lemon.
This is absolutely typical. Problems shake out in the first few years of a new model. This isn't to excuse any failures on the part of Boeing or their subcontractors, but we see the same pattern in software, vehicles, or any other complicated products.
Now you will certainly find it interesting to look at the safety profile of your other activities. And estimate repeating those risks through your life. That order of magnitude makes all the difference in the world.
In general, the more consumer knowledge the better. You may not know why I care and you may not think it matters, but how about just letting me decide anyway? I think the same goes for food labelling, country of origin, labor conditions and so on. We allow companies an insane degree of secrecy.
There will always be incidents no matter how rare, investigations will always show that the something could have been done better because nothing can be done perfect, the press will always inflame the public and the public will want to have an opinion/decision no matter how out uninformed.
This does mean that this utility isn't really that useful, though, and its simpler to just book with e.g. Delta over Alaska.
Someone has to win the lottery and it could be you. The fact that the probability isn't high doesn't matter when you're dying because Boeing wanted to make an extra dollar.
It also makes sense at the population level. It's clear that Congress and the FAA are not capable of overseeing Boeing. And they're too big to even stumble now, never mind fail. The solution is for consumers to punish them. That will get them to fix their problems ASAP.
People are so bad at statistics.
You know who else self-certifies their safety? Car companies. 30,000+ people die every year in car crashes in the US but that’s totally fine. (Of course I am well aware of various car company safety scandals where profit was placed above safety).
With US airline travel you have to go back multiple years before you find a single flight-related death on a mainstream commercial jet.
Meanwhile everyone I know seems to refuse public transit to the airport because of the “crackheads” and “homeless people” even though their car is way more dangerous than those supposed threats. I have to beg people I travel with to stop assuming that a taxi is going to be a better experience than a train or even a bus.
The fact that most Americans are against abolishing the 2nd amendment is also another piece of statistical ignorance. It’s such a no-brainer win on public safety but everyone is drunk on their revolutionary war propaganda from when guns didn’t even have the modern concept of bullets. You’re wildly more statistically likely to be shot by a police officer in the US than to be shot by an actual criminal in the UK because that’s how dumb enshrining the rights of killing appliances into a constitution is.
I’m all for the customer’s power to boycott, but the actual solution that will save lives is for the government and the FAA to tighten regulations and be more thorough.
For a plane type filter I’d personally use it more for comfort or perhaps CO2 emissions preferences and not safety.
Car companies don’t certify their own safety, they have to send them in to the government to be crash tested. Car deaths don’t happen (much) because of mechanical failures, they happen because of crashes. They don’t self-certify their crashworthiness.
Most people don’t live somewhere where there’s a subway to the airport in the USA. You can count on one hand (and probably have multiple fingers left over) the number of cities where you have that option. For most people a bus adds significant time to their trip. I can take a 30 minute Uber whenever I want or a God-only-knows-how-long bus ride. Even if it weren’t for the mentally ill (but mostly harmless) passengers, a taxi is in every way a better experience than a bus, and still negligible risk, it just costs more.
Even if we could abolish the second amendment that still leaves over 300 million guns here, and this may surprise you but people also sell things illegally. The problem isn’t the law, it’s that people want guns.
Laws can be changed. There’s no obligation to double down on them. We don’t keep lead pipes legal just because it’s very costly and time-intensive to replace all of them. That’s only an argument to start sooner rather than later. Guns would be a cakewalk to take off the streets compared to lead pipes. For one thing, guns need a consumable to function at all (ammunition).
Yes, car makers self-certify. You are not correct about that. Government crash tests aren’t a prerequisite to being allowed to sell a vehicle.
Example source:
https://www.consumerreports.org/car-safety/some-cars-will-ne...
You can also ask ChatGPT if you want.
And then here we go with the carbrain argument “the only option is cars, America is set up for cars.” That was and continues to be an intentional choice. It is not irreversible. It is not something that we are forced to double down on just because that’s been our choice so far. Every time a road is built or a highway is widened that’s an intentional choice that is no less intentional or costly than sending the money toward transit options or pedestrian/cycling infrastructure.
The Netherlands had this exact same problem in the 70s and reversed it. Something like 90% of daily trips are under 5 miles, which is less than 30 minutes on a bike. The Netherlands has zero cities that are as populous as the top 10 most populous American cities.
“The bus adds significant time” but that’s the thing that people say who never take the bus. Can you work on your laptop while you drive? Can you read while you drive? I can do that on the bus. Sounds like I get time back, and my ride is statistically 10x safer.
Also, when it comes to large urban areas, you have to remember that most people live in them. That’s why they’re large urban areas. A New Yorker who never drives anywhere isn't someone who “doesn’t count” because they live in New York and it’s an anomaly. More of America depends on public transit than you think.
The article you posted said that 97% of the cars on the road are crash tested by the government. I think my statement on that is substantially accurate.
In America, most large urban areas do not have extensive trains. I’ve lived all over this country, the only places I can think of where most of an urban area can take any sort of train from most of the city to the airport are NY, Boston, Chicago. There may be some I’m missing, and even in those cities, they don’t cover the entire area. Probably at least 75% of the country can’t walk from their home to a train and take it to the airport.
America’s infrastructure is entirely beyond my ability to control. I can take a one hour bus ride and read I am sure but I’ve got stuff to do with my day, so I’ll take the 30 minute Uber with no nutjobs yelling at thin air.
I think you’re also getting confused between population and population density. The US has a population density of 1/12th the Netherlands. You can bike just fine around our densely populated areas, though our poor bike lane design makes it far more dangerous than driving. The Netherlands has a small population but they live much closer together which is what matters for public transport cost. It would cost an order of magnitude more here to provide the same level of service, so we don’t. Maybe we should but when I need to get to the airport that’s not really on my mind.
People aren't (physically) addicted to guns. If only there were data from other countries...
> I think you’re also getting confused between population and population density. The US has a population density of 1/12th the Netherlands.
Few people are demanding public transport spanning entire sparsely populated states.
There are enough cities in the US with comparable population densities to e.g. Amsterdam.
There’s one mid sized city (Jersey city) and 4 small cities.
Not even 5% of our population lives in somewhere as dense as Amsterdam.
These arguments come up here all the time because HN has a bike-friendly car hating crowd, but the actual numbers all support that the decision to have public transport vs car culture all stems from population density. Populations all over the world make similar decisions with similar inputs, they just have different inputs.
DC has the most convenient airport for transit access; if you park, you literally have to work through the train station to get to the airport. Atlanta has a mediocre train system, but it has excellent access to the airport. Philadelphia has a mediocre connection to the airport, but stronger system overall. SFO also is reasonably accessible by BART.
Indeed, the only US city I can think of with a large urban rail system with an abysmal airport connection is LA, although LA's rail transit network in general is just a smorgasbord of sadness.
> The US has a population density of 1/12th the Netherlands.
Yeah, that's because there's large expanses of land in Alaska or the West where literally nobody lives. But most people live in urban environments of some kind; the fifty largest MSAs account for over half the population (too lazy to do the math to get the exact number), and even the fiftieth largest is of a size that would, in Europe, have a functional transit system of some kind.
Go down the list of the biggest cities (all of which I’ve spent time in and commuted to an airport except DC) and ask if the average person can walk to a station and get to it and it’s like 90% NFW.
https://simple.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_ci...
A lot more Americans live in a city that looks like Houston than NY.
(Though I have a place in Phoenix and the tram system is getting better by the year and it is quite possible they’ll change categories.)
Most of the cities in the US don't have a functional mass transit system, but there is no population density reason they couldn't.
Most Americans can’t walk from their door to train station to the airport. However you want to count it, it’s unlikely to be even a double digit percent.
I'm not denying that. What I'm trying to point out is that most Americans live someplace where a viable mass transit system can be designed to facilitate that. In other words, in the places where Americans actually live, the US isn't all that much less dense than the corresponding places in Europe. If Nice can have a viable tram system, there's no reason that, say, Nashville couldn't.
The success of public transit is entirely a function of population density, because the amount of riders is directly proportional to population, and the cost is proportional to the distance you were moving them.
People always say that, and somebody even said that in this thread, and I pointed out that Amsterdam would be the fifth most dense city in America if it were here. Three of the more dense cities are the ones that actually have usable public transit.
Of course, everywhere could have public transit if you are not counting return on investment. If you had infinite money, and no necessity to make it back, you could put public transit in Columbus, Ohio.
But that is not how our world works, and roads and cars simply make economic sense when the population density drops below, a certain threshold, which is where most of America lives. And by most I mean like 90 some percent.
I mean look at the existing public transit in very dense cities, like New York, Boston, etc. They are all losing money and struggling to pay for it while cutting services. It’s just really difficult in America because we are spread out and everything is expensive, in Europe, where the cities have substantially higher population density and lower expenses it makes sense.
Seattle has pretty awful train <-> airport access. You walk from the train through the parking garage to the terminal.
while it is a simple process to change a law - rights guaranteed by the constitution necessarily and by design, have a much higher bar that must be crossed in order to change - and there is currently not even close to enough people in favor in enough states to revoke the 2nd amendment.
I’m the odd duck in thinking that almost any country would easily find 3/4 of its state/provincial legislature votes needed to approve a repeal of an amendment similar to the 2nd amendment. I am more than baffled by the logic behind keeping it around.
Even the most progressive segments of the US aren’t generally in favor of getting rid of it entirely.
The list of countries with similarly permissive gun laws is basically one-hand’s worth, and none of them are G20 countries. Basically the United States is in the company of Yemen and almost nobody else.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overview_of_gun_laws_by_nation
(Check out the “comparison” section with the maps)
Anyway, sorry, this is horribly off-topic.
Correlation != causation, but one doesn’t have to be ignorant of statistics to suspect the system failure is at least in part due to letting corporations self-certify.
We don’t want the regulators to wait until there’s another crash to do something about it.
I love when people don't read the very source they cite.
> Some untested models are new or redesigned and merely waiting in line to be evaluated. About 97 percent of all new vehicles sold are crash-test rated by one or both of the independent organizations.
This is for niche models and make upgrades that will be tested soon. It's perfectly correct to say that cars are tested when 97% of them are.
No, they don't. Car companies (in the US) must send cars to NHTSA for crash testing.
> I’m all for the customer’s power to boycott, but the actual solution that will save lives is for the government and the FAA to tighten regulations and be more thorough.
This is true. And how would you get the FAA to care enough to do that?
Boycotts are one way, make them see people care.
Yes! Your comment confirms that!
> You know who else self-certifies their safety? Car companies.
False. They do not.
> 30,000+ people die every year in car crashes in the US but that’s totally fine
That's not how the probabilities work out. Most of those people are drunk/high, speeding, drowsy, or very old. Then, the car that you drive, how defensive you are, and how much you drive comes into play. My personal chances are astronomically low compared to someone who drives.
> You’re wildly more statistically likely to be shot by a police officer in the US than to be shot by an actual criminal in the UK because that’s how dumb enshrining the rights of killing appliances into a constitution is.
This has nothing to do with the 2nd amendment. It has to do with the militarization of the police, the war on drugs, the long history of violence and racism by police, which are totally different issues.
> I’m all for the customer’s power to boycott, but the actual solution that will save lives is for the government and the FAA to tighten regulations and be more thorough.
So your solution is to do the thing that has failed over and over and over again? The thing that Congress refuses to do? (fund the FAA). I have no words.
I think it is naive and dangerous to simply blame profit motive for the problems at Boeing, Profit has always been goal at Boeing, and I assume is also a goal of Airbus and every other manufacturer.
So if something has changed recently maybe one should look at other corporate priorities that have in reality supplanted profit as the number one goal for many corporations.
In fact Maybe a return to profit motive is what we need to resolve the problems
There are some big problems here, first and foremost the idea that because Airbus is owned by governments that makes it some how better. Also they seem to not understand that "Boeing’s four largest shareholders" being Vanguard, and State Street means most likely Boeing largest Shareholders are peoples 40K's and IRA's. Meaning everyday middle class American's
Nothing in this standard Reich diatribe against capitalism, in favor of socialist utopia of Workers Unions would solve all problems accurately identifies the actual problems at Boeing I was talking about in my parent comment.
Boeing being owned by Vanguard is a problem, but not because Vangaurd seeks to maximize profits, infact in recent years so called "Stakeholder Capitalism" which I believe Reich is also a proponent of has taken over Vangaurd and even more so Black Rock which puts a whole host of things over profits, and IMO this "Stakeholder Capitalism" is the root cause of the problem. It is a cancer in Business.
This doesn't give "everyday middle class Americans" influence on how Boeing operates, and these everyday middle class Americans aren't directing these funds to invest in Boeing -- index funds set some critera for inclusion which is passively applied, and actively managed funds' managers make some judgement, factoring in policy, risk, and growth-based criteria and strategy. These funds are concerned with growth for their customers, and their customers have no awareness, input, or say, via their investments in these funds, on things like "door plugs are made in Malaysia, where workers’ concerns about speed of production and quality oversight don't have much impact on their managers". Then, the current Boeing leadership wrongly thought that taking shortcuts on quality and safety would not decrease growth, profit, and their stock price beyond the short-term, but instead increase these, which is what they care more about (hopefully that leadership will change soon and drastically). There is no connection between "everyday middle class Americans'" retirement accounts, their concerns about safety, and how Boeing operates.
> There are some big problems here, first and foremost the idea that because Airbus is owned by governments that makes it some how better.
You've missed the larger points about how "who owns Airbus" affects whom and what Airbus pays heed to, and affects how Airbus operates (including mechanisms that are affected by input and concerns of their workers on things like safety and quality); and how that contrasts with Boeing; and the connection to Boeing's current woes.
> Nothing in this standard Reich diatribe against capitalism, in favor of socialist utopia of Workers Unions would solve all problems accurately
This isn't a "diatribe against capitalism, in favor of socialist utopia of Workers Unions". Reich is not a socialist; his position is, "We don’t need socialism. We need a capitalism that works for the vast majority." [https://robertreich.org/post/22542609387]. He is for regulating capitalism, not instituting socialism.
> Nothing ... identifies the actual problems at Boeing I was talking about in my parent comment. > ... > Boeing being owned by Vanguard is a problem, but not because Vangaurd seeks to maximize profits, infact in recent years so called "Stakeholder Capitalism" which I believe Reich is also a proponent of has taken over Vangaurd and even more so Black Rock which puts a whole host of things over profits, and IMO this "Stakeholder Capitalism" is the root cause of the problem. It is a cancer in Business.
> parent comment: ... So if something has changed recently maybe one should look at other corporate priorities that have in reality supplanted profit as the number one goal for many corporations.
Boeing's problems didn't start when they added "climate" and "DEI" to their priorities. "...Europe’s DEI policies tend to be more strict than American ones. If DEI was at the root of design and manufacturing problems, Airbus would have a similar issue" --
"Stakeholder capitalism" has nothing to do with Boeing's leadership ignoring their workers' safety and quality concerns.
"Elon Musk Says Boeing Has a Diversity Problem. The Evidence Says Otherwise" https://archive.is/O86SU
"A terrifying 10 minute flight adds to years of Boeing’s quality control problems" https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/08/business/boeing-safety-qualit...
"‘This Has Been Going on for Years.’ Inside Boeing’s Manufacturing Mess." https://archive.is/DfXiW
> … supplanted profit as the number one goal for many corporations.
Not sure many people would agree that profit, at the expense of safety, should be the number one goal of Boeing. I’d rather fly on an Airbus, where it isn’t.
Speaking of which - the probabilities are exactly the same for passengers as cabin crew and there is no compounding effect :p
Number of times you roll the dicey has no effect on probabilities and thus no impact on whether make sense.
I’m not doing this often this can swallow more risk is very human thinking
If you don't take my made up numbers but wikipedia [1], and if I get my math right, B737 max has 4 accidents per millions flights, vs 0.2 for previous B737. That means that over a career of 15 years, working 200 days per year, 3 flights a day, a crew has a chance of dying of 3.54% with the Max vs 0.18% for the older models. 0.18% might be non material but 3.54% starts to be significant. (a passenger that takes 10 B737 max flights a year over that period only has a 0.06% probability to die).
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_737_MAX#Accidents_and_i...
I’m always amazed at where people spend energy mitigating risk, I had a coworker who was worried about taking the Covid vaccine but was hardly the picture of health and rode a motorcycle to work many days - it’s like putting down the beer, eating a salad, and taking the bus will give you massive gains in life expectancy vs some minor unknown delta with the Covid vaccine, but to each their own. I just wish we could get people to use micromorts (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micromort)
Like there’s a hundred ways changing your diet could harm you rather than help even if you think you’re reducing your risk.
Talk about not understanding risk.
That is literally twice as dangerous.
Until one day you close the bedroom door 5% harder than usual and the whole house collapses.
That hasn't changed at all.
-- Spirit Aerosystems 2022 10-K filing
They do 3 times as much business with Boeing than Airbus.
(Airbus may also wrap Spirit in their own Q/A process to mitigate the issues, which Boeing is certainly lacking)
https://viewfromthewing.com/boeing-whistleblower-production-...
The worry is that Airbus is ALSO going to be affected by this shitty quality, not that Boeing isn't totally fucked by its outsourcing to Spirit Aerosystems.