Pilots Unafraid To Fly On Boeing 737 Max
How do pilots feel about the troubled 737 Max return to service? Most say, ’Let’s go flying.’
Boeing 737 Max. Photo by Andreas Zeitler/Shutterstock
As we expressed when we published the survey last week asking how confident our audience members were in the 737 Max, we weren't quite sure what to expect. As it turned out, a strong majority of those who took the survey have little fear of potential risk they'd encounter flying on the jet liner. The plane has been grounded for 20 months now after a pair of catastrophic crashes, one in 2017 and one in 2018, which killed a total of 346 people. Investigators are trying to pin down the causes pointed at both Boeing and the FAA for system-wide failures that resulted in the worldwide grounding of the next-gen 737.
To our question, "How confident are you that the FAA and Boeing got the design of the 737 Max right this time?" respondents were either "extremely" (49%) or "fairly confident" (21%) that they did, meaning that 70% of respondents expressed a strong degree of confidence in the fixes made to the plane. Again, a strong majority, 64%, said that they'd fly on the 737 Max on Day One of its reintroduction.
Perhaps most surprising to us is that 35% of those who answered the survey said that they would have flown on it even if it the underlying issue hadn't been fully addressed. To be fair, 65% say that they would have declined.
In response to our last question, "Would you fly on one after it has been back in service for a while?" 60% said that wouldn't need to wait even that long and 26% answered that they'd wait a bit but would fly on it once it proved itself safe.
A lucky 13% of respondents said they'd never fly on the 737 Max.
It's never too late to add your voice to the survey. And thanks to all those who took part.
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