American Airlines is planning to restart 737 MAX service this year—barely. The airline said that it will fly the MAX between Miami and LaGuardia starting Dec. 29, amounting to just one flight a day. American has 24 of the 737 MAX jets on its roster, second only to Southwest (which has 34) in the U.S. The MAX has recently received approval from the European Aviation Safety Agency, saying that the airplane is now “safe” and that it expects the design to begin flying again in the E.U. before the end of the year.
I must say that I enjoyed my one MAX flight as pax a great deal. It seems like a nice airplane, provided of course the fix works as planned on the line.
The plane may be ready, but is the flying public? There will be a significant number of people who will be ignorant to its history, but I think American only dipping their toes in the water signifies there may be more data behind its acceptance.
I think the flying public fall into certain groups. For the most part, you have people who don’t know what kind of plane they’re on, and probably don’t care. There are people who have concerns with any plane that is “too little” and that acceptable size threshold varies individually. The body of people who know and strongly care whether or not they’re flying on a MAX is going to be relatively small. Those people will never be ready for it until after the airplane has been back in routine service of a year or more. So at some point service must begin.
Most passengers seem to be more concerned with things like leg room, charging ports in seat backs, carry on baggage space, and whether or not there are TV screens in the seat back. Some do know the type of aircraft they are on, but most don’t really care. As to safety, I would fly on one today and not give it a second thought.
I agree with David. The vast majority of travelers won’t care or know. But all of this will depend on how the media handles the reintroduction of the MAX or 8, or whatever Boeing and friends are calling it these days. If they talk about its past, it could send people into a frenzy.
Either way, this is not my route or the airline I fly with
Every scheduled flight lists the type of aircraft used, right on the ticket. It’s also on every website
that books flights, and every travel agent knows it, too. Thus there is nothing “transparent” about
what American Airlines is doing, except for their deviousness. What remains utterly opaque is the
737-MAX itself, which may explain why their news release coyly put the word ‘safe’ in quotes. Let
corporate lawyers fly the plane, so that pilots, crews and passengers may at last lay down the law.
