Photo illustration: by The Cut; Photography: Sheiko Alexander/Alamy, Issarawat Tatton/Getty Images
A few months ago, my daughter and her boyfriend and I flew from New York to Palm Springs on Alaska Airlines. A week and a half later, the door of the same plane we were on, a Boeing 737-Max 9, fell in the sky, sucking the teenager's shirt clean. surprised.
Since our trip, I have been following Boeing news with concern and disbelief. A Boeing 747-8 flying from Miami to Puerto Rico spewed flames in the air. A Boeing 737 Max-8 flying from Memphis to Houston fell off the runway after landing. A Boeing plane flying from Los Angeles to San Francisco lost a wheel on takeoff. crushed the car under (777); Then a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner flying from Sydney to Auckland plummeted into the air. This is not a complete list of incidents involving Boeing aircraft in 2024 or a complete list of incidents involving the Boeing Company. In particular, in 2018, two Boeing 737 Max-8 planes crashed, killing all 346 people on board. Also, prominent Boeing whistleblower John Barnett, who spoke out against what he saw as widespread safety failures at the company, was shot and killed in his truck last week. was discovered.
Over the past few months, Boeing executives have resembled Kensington Palace, and we've been keeping an eye on Kensington Palace and asking: What's next? what's happening? Why would you do that? and are you evil? Boeing literally kept senior executives safe until this week, when CEO Dave Calhoun, who blamed the door incident on a “quality escape,” announced he would step down by the end of 2024. Ta.
With spring break season in full swing, I checked out Boeing memes (a recurring motif: “Boeing never goes”), immersed myself in Boeing TikTok, spent time on the Boeing Reddit forum, and listened to podcasts. . . Everywhere I looked, I was met with anxiety about airplanes and amateur (but impressive) research into jet aircraft. Have we taken quality escape too far? Have we grown fed up with the endless barrage of news about Boeing and started changing our carefully booked travel plans?
Yes, says the site AlternativeAirlines.com, which now has a dedicated page with the heading “Which airlines don't fly the Boeing 737 MAX?” (JetBlue and Delta fans can remain smug; Spirit fans can enjoy this fun new sensation.) No, says Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. Even as he presses Boeing to improve its safety standards, he also says he feels safe flying on Boeing's planes. Yes, said his friend Josh. He was actively avoiding booking Boeing for his family vacation this summer. “I was looking for a flight from Vancouver back to New York and I saw a kayak that said Max 8 and I said I wasn't going to be on it,” he told me. “I actually chose a flight out of Seattle. So it's a three-hour drive from Vancouver to Seattle,” he said. I clarified, “Are you going to drive three hours to avoid a Boeing?” “Yeah.” Then he takes a JetBlue flight and returns home on an Airbus.
Michelle Burress, a mother of two, emailed me from the runway at Newark Airport, where she was sitting on a Boeing Airbus. Her 9 a.m. flight was delayed until noon because of a mechanical problem, and now for a second time due to another mechanical problem, which the pilot said was “different” than the first. are related,” he said. It was 1:30pm. As her 8-year-old twin boys melted next to her, she gave me permission to quote her posthumous words and her instructions for where her dog Rosie should be relocated. At 3:19 p.m., she sent her update. The plane landed, collected its luggage, and was transferred to another terminal to catch a 5:30 p.m. United Airlines flight to Phoenix…a Boeing 737. (They returned safely.) And Rosie is fine. )
I've noticed that sometimes people mention their children as a factor in their flight anxiety. “Following reports about problems with Boeing, we decided to cancel our Alaska flight and rebook on another airline,” Alexandra Cavourakos told me, adding that she and her husband were traveling with their young daughter, 2. He said he plans to travel without anyone else. “It wasn't worth the risk of anything happening.” My friend Haley said she now looks more carefully at her seat location when making reservations. On her last flight, she said, “I didn't want to be near the emergency exits.” Hailey and her husband have four children, ranging in age from 18 months to 11 years old, and she admitted that she was holding her youngest son, Sonny, on her lap. I gently asked her if she had changed her mind about the baby on her lap. After a door plug exploded on an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737-Max 9, a number of articles were published about the possibility that a baby was sucked out of the plane through a hole in the fuselage. Haley didn't seem to have read the same article. I don't know if she would have had the spine to continue this conversation if she didn't know that Haley would forgive her for bursting this special bubble. When I explained the visual, she finally let out a scream.
It turns out it was ruining air travel for many people I interviewed. DJ Kunal Merchant finished his autumn tour in India and departed on a North American tour this past weekend. I asked him if he had ever thought about what kind of plane he would be on. “I’m definitely thinking about that. now,” he said. His wife and publicist Aparna Rao told me: already I'm thinking about it. Kunal said he believes in the system, saying, “I feel the airline industry is too big to fail.” But he has played in 13 cities this spring, and Aparna plans to reconfirm all flights. (Checking whether his spouse's plane is Boeing is the new love language.)
A lot of the responses I got were fueled by trust in the system. Courtney Harding, who travels frequently for work, said: “Overall, I fly a lot and statistically speaking, even with everything revealed, flying is still the safest form of travel.'' I have to tell myself that,” he said in an email. Susan McPherson, a million-mile United and Delta passenger, said: “On the last three Qantas flights I've just sat in the exit row and didn't think about the door fiasco, maybe because I was in Australia.'' I can’t!” he said. And I've been to all seven continents. Even my friend Rebecca Soffer, author of Modern Loss and what could very well be described as “risk-aware,” wondered what the flight she and her family were flying home from Mexico was like. surprised me by his optimistic attitude. I have reached the saturation point of my infatuation. ”
That said, some avid flyers have made one important change: seatbelts. “Ever since that scene where the door came off and no one happened to be sitting in the window seat, I became adamant about wearing my seatbelt,” Macy Schmidt said. “Movie in Concert” will be held at bandshells nationwide. She now wears a seatbelt in business class and sleeps on her side on long-haul flights, she said. (In the last month, she has flown to Paris, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Los Angeles, and Tampa and Fort Myers, Florida.)
The issue of trust has come up several times.in odd lot Bloomberg's Joe Weisenthal said on a podcast that concerns about Boeing go beyond plane safety. “I'm really worried about Boeing. I don't want to be in Boeing,” he said in January. “When America's great airplane manufacturers have constant trouble building planes, I worry about this country.” Later on IG Joe and his family look happy for a family wedding I saw you flying into Austin. I contacted his wife, entrepreneur Brooke Moreland, and asked her what kind of planes she flew. I flew there on a United Airlines Boeing 737 and returned on an Airbus (no TV). “Both flights were flawless and I thank God,” she said. Of course, “I have two kids, so TV is very helpful.”
Sam Slaughter can't stop thinking about the fact that Boeing's whistleblower has died. “There's a part of me that thinks you should never trust anyone in a position of authority, because these institutions and people lie, and they do lie. “It's been proven time and time again,” he said. When he cited “governments, big business and the Illuminati,” he appeared to be only half-joking. “But not trusting any organization requires a lot of energy. I don't have the mental capacity.”
I decided to talk to someone who had the mental capacity to do so.
Will, 15, is an aerospace geek and the son of my friend Lauren. He asked her to check her plane before flying to Aspen for her family's spring break. He told me he logged almost his 417.7 hours in Microsoft Flight Simulator. He wears glasses and braces, and wears his T-shirt that says, “L = Cl xrx (v²/ 2) Ta. L = Lift, this is the lift equation for lifting the aircraft off the ground.
Did Will think it was time to abandon Boeing? “No,” he said. He added, “I have a strong preference that I don't want to go with Boeing, but if it's my only option, I'm fine with that.''
Will said versions of this “yes, but” statement multiple times during the 37-minute call, which included a four-minute interrogation about Boeing's history of problems from 2018 to the present. But I also wondered about the curse of knowing too much. I asked Will if understanding how planes work makes him worry even more because he knows how things can go wrong. “I feel very safe to fly, and I'm not worried at all,” he said confidently. “Even if these [Boeing] Airplanes are not safe, but aircraft safety standards are so high that honestly just driving to the airport is much more dangerous. ”
Once again, the fundamental trust in air travel was paralleled by a fundamental distrust of Boeing. We all wanted to make the best decisions based on the best information we had. But Boeing had planted seeds of doubt, enough to make us feel a little anxious and even more than crazy, no matter what kind of trip we booked. L= Cl xrx (v²/2) x What part of A do you not understand?
Even Will, a firm believer in the safety of air travel, couldn't land firmly on one side. When we got off the phone, he told me again that the door plug on his Alaska Airlines 737 Max-9 had blown out because the bolt wasn't tightened. “If they refuse to check that the bolts are tight, what else are they not checking?” he wondered.
