this post was submitted on 07 Mar 2024
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My uncle repaired airplanes for a living. I have never flown as an adult and I hopefully never will. Somethings I just can't unlearn. When he first started things were great, but by the time he retired it was a shitshow of cutting corners on replacement parts and who knows what else.
One of the defining characteristics of Southwest is that they ONLY fly 737s (Boeing). That and their focus on domestic flights helps them offer good rates and low/non-existent fees. I guess their maintenance only has to focus on one plane. However, it seems like they got caught up in Boeing's "737 MAX is the same plane" scam because they fly some of those too and I believe it affected their stock.
Commercial flying remains the safest way to travel, and it continues to get safer. That's not to minimise your reluctance to fly. I get it: if something goes wrong it's 99.9% sure you're going to die, and know about it long enough for your last moments to be horrifying. But the facts is the facts and the facts is that you're way more likely to die on a bicycle journey.
I don't buy that simply because of the metrics used to get to that "safest way to travel". Isn't it per distance traveled? That's extremely pro aeroplane.
What if it's per journey?
It's not extremely pro aeroplane, because if a plane crashes there are 100x more fatalities than in a car crash. Even so, there are more than 100x more fatalities in cars.
It makes sense that flying is safer because it's so strictly regulated. People are able to drive tired/sick/hungover but pilots aren't. Your car can have a fault that you haven't noticed where planes can't.* There's a crew operating the plane as opposed to a single driver.
*The exception proves the rule on this one