United CEO Oscar Munoz vowed to be a passenger on the first Boeing 737 MAX flight, when the airliner is cleared to fly again. Would you join him?
Speaking to investors this week, Munoz used a bit of reverse psychology:
Just because somebody says it’s safe, you as the flying public aren’t just going to get on the aircraft.
By inviting skepticism, he gains credibility to later argue the 737 MAX is safe to fly. And of course skepticism is warranted: even if the issue is more a PR problem than structural problem (that debate is ongoing), Boeing and the FAA are operating out of a trust deficit at the moment. Boeing appears to have cut corners while the FAA “outsourced” some inspections directly back to Boeing. People should not be faulted for being skeptical.
United’s plan to resume flying the 737 MAX includes:
- Educating both employees and customers why United feels safe putting the 737 MAX back in the sky
- Making it clear and transparent to customers that they are on the 737 MAX so there are no surprises
- Accommodating travelers who still feel too nervous to fly on the 737 MAX
On that last point, Munoz said:
If people need any kind of adjustments, we will absolutely rebook them.
This is an important gesture in instilling confidence as well. By proactively offering flexibility, I expect customers are less likely to exercise it.
CONCLUSION
I would also be happy to fly on the first 737 MAX flight once it is cleared to fly again and Munoz’s willingness to be on it gives me even more confidence.
Will you board another 737 MAX flight once the aircraft start flying again?
Nope. Not a chance. No way that Boeing, The FAA, and to some extent the airlines – who turned away from warnings from its pilots and put lives in jeopardy, should get a free pass on this. This was criminal. Lives were lost. Many more were put in peril. And the entire time they knew it. Paying the victims family is not enough. Paying for the entire project in watching it collapse as people refuse to fly on it is the only way to assure that they never do it again. Otherwise the bean counters will look at the overall cost of compensation and say “well, the settlements were cheaper than actually doing it right the first time.” They will never learn as such and history will repeat itself. The MAX needs to be shelved and Boeing to pay a much steeper price.
Absolutely I would
A recall and buybacks of the clunkers should be enforced.
Meh. It’s a publicity stunt. If there was any real danger, I’d rather have Scott Kirby on board.
LOL!
Yes… But it’s a publicity stunt… The plane is and will be fine. 2 months after re-certification, stockholders will still remember the problem, but airline customers will not.
I would have been fine with the MAX continuing to fly while they worked a solution. In the US anyway…
LOL @Christian
If UA makes it a frequent flyer party flight, sure I will be there
No!!!!
My reasoning is that this model of B737 design is flawed from the start and requires software to make it able to stay in the air more than any other airline.
Even with tweaks in the software and added visual warning lights, it is not a question of “if” but “when” will a third aircraft crash if this model for a failure in the software.
The FAA should learn from this and go back to be an agency that puts safety before corporate profit and Boeing should go back to design airplanes that are great regardless of corporate greed, ego , and selfishness.
Take the high road and design a new aircraft that will last another 50 years and take the hit by redesigning the Max that the old engines fit on it and making it that way a gap filler until the new aircraft arrives. Taking a financial hit this way will be better than waiting for a third crash and then loosing it all.
Boeing please make a safe move and not a high risk gamble.
I avoid the Max for a different reason – overly dense layouts and lavs on both UA and AA.
I’m not booking the MAX any time. The only airlines I fly regularly that uses it is LOT and although sometimes the consequence of not booking them is inconvenient I will suffer the inconvenience use any other European full service carrier which flys anything else and fortunately that’s every other European full service carrier.
I can’t see a time when I will change my mind either.
This engineer says no, heck no, and absolutely heck no. Boeing built a “corvair” imho, unsafe with any software…
I doubt the thing will fly anytime soon but if so it would anyway be just limited to the US.
Re-certification in any other country is going to take much longer as we can expect some thorough testing to be done outside the US.
I’m sure the one CEO is flying on, will have extra care. So yeah I’d fly THAT one.
Will I fly one otherwise? No.
737 MAX is saddled with too many problems. I say this as an aerospace engineer. Improved lipstick, doesn’t transform the pig. The right thing to do, is gracefully end the line and start over. The people responsible for this mess should have been sacked. That they weren’t tells you all you need to know about Boeing, and American capitalism as it exists today.
I’m with D.A. Using a software fix to correct for the plane’s tendency to pitch up isn’t very reassuring. Add to that the dense and unappealing layout, this plane is an uncomfortable ride at best, and an unsafe one at worst.
I’d be happy to fly on a 737MAX today, with 3 conditions:
1) Must be a major airline based in a first-world country with an experienced crew. No flights on Air Ubangi, with Senior Captain Smith who has less than 100 hours in an actual cockpit seat in a jet, thank you.
2) It would have to be going someplace I wanted to go (I’m not going to just ride along to Cleveland for no reason)
3) Only in business class if the flight is longer than 4 hours.
The morons all screaming for a Boeing scalp don’t know the first thing about aviation or aviation safety. Just signing up for a bunch of credit cards, wanting to sit a little closer to the cockpit, and having an internet connection doesn’t qualify you to make judgements about what makes airplanes fly and how to keep them out of the rocks (yeah, that’s shocking, I know).
Keyboard warriors and self-appointed experts. The Stupidity of Crowds.
Cleveland is actually amazing so…
“The morons all screaming for a Boeing scalp don’t know the first thing about aviation or aviation safety.”
This is the point where you need to insert your credentials otherwise you are no different just screaming from the other perspective …
The 737 has long had problems. In the 1980’s and 1990’s, they were falling out of the sky because the rudder acted like it was possessed by the devil. Remember UA 737-200 PIA-DEN-COS then crashed into the ground so that there were no bodies, just a finger here or a thigh bone there. US Air had a similar crash.
Fixes are made, just like the 737 MAX 8, so I expect many more years of safe flying.
Happily. Just pay for a business class ticket BOM – USA – BOM
To answer the question straight up, Yes I would fly the MAX (again) once it’s recertified. I’d fly UA’s “re-inaugural” too – Oscar or no Oscar – if my schedule allowed it, which is unlikely.
I think UA’s policy (re rebooking nervous pax) is smart though it means they’ll have to be smart in their scheduling to accommodate nervous fliers. Every MAX flight will need a viable/not too inconvenient alternative for the short term.
As you might imagine among professional pilots the MAX has been a subject of some discussion. But not one I’ve talked to especially those who fly the 737 would hesitate for one second to fly the airplane today. I think that speaks pretty loudly especially when you consider that the exposure of those flying the MAX is many multiples higher than any passanger should there be a problem.
Have not flown United in years, Delta Diamond Medallion here. I would fly the United 737 Max in a heartbeat.
I would fly the max any day of the week, just not in a 3rd world country where the incidents happened. Pilot’s unions say they feel safe, so it probably is. I would also do it because the CEO would be onboard.