Safety-wise, are there airlines you would or wouldn’t fly?

Safety wise Chinese aviation is pretty good, they’re trying hard to create their own home grown aircraft so they desperately want a good reputation. Therefore safety wise, I wouldn’t be concerned

I’d never fly on them due to service levels and the elephant in the room, china as a whole…

The only aircraft to be careful of is the C919. As it’s only certified in china, that of course means you won’t fly long haul on it

EASA has a list of airlines not allowd to fly into the EU. FAA the same for the US

I wouldn’t fly any airline on either of those lists.

Not wanting to fly on ana airline because of service levels is a different (but understandable) matter entirely – see e.g. the discussion on Vueling today and TAP previously – people say they won’t flying those because of their service levels not because they are unsafe.

I’ve done all of the above Chinese airlines, sometimes you just can’t argue with the price.

I’ve also been on a Qantas flight where the engine flaked out just after takeoff from LAX (quite the sight from the exit row seeing flames shooting out at night!), and this was only a few months after they lost a door to the hold mid flight. So from my minuscule sample size, perhaps Qantas should be avoided?

phantomchickenz wrote:

I’ve done all of the above Chinese airlines, sometimes you just can’t argue with the price.

I’ve also been on a Qantas flight where the engine flaked out just after takeoff from LAX (quite the sight from the exit row seeing flames shooting out at night!), and this was only a few months after they lost a door to the hold mid flight. So from my minuscule sample size, perhaps Qantas should be avoided?

Qantas doesn’t have a great safety record, some of it bad luck as they were the first to have a380 engine issues. Nothing fatal in decades. Again partly luck.

Just remember that flying is safer than driving or walking down the street and you quickly realise, is it worth a panic?

Not safety related but I’d fly China Southern again. I wouldn’t fly Air China, the food was truely terrible and I’m Chinese and not picky

Hard “no” to Bangkok Airways from me. I witnessed the aftermath of a dash-8 crash on Koh Samui a long time ago – severe pilot error.

Lion Air – no.

Other Indonesian airlines – maybe, but I’ll take some convincing.

737-max – no (give it a few years without incident and I might reconsider to “maybe”)

Not likely to cause a crash with loss of all souls but Ryanair’s use of rickety, steep skysteps in one reason I avoid them. Speed over safety and comfort – no thanks.

ChrisBCN wrote:

I would fly any airline certified by the EASA. I am still actively avoiding the 737 Max though… I said on here some 6 months ago they were due another accident – and it happened with the Alaska door popping out. That would have been extremely serious/deadly if it happened at cruising altitude, thankfully there was a little luck.

I know some will say ‘look how many safe flights it’s had’ but you are missing the point. It’s a dog of a plane made under a terrible safety culture.

A friend who is in the trade recently flew on the Max and was invited into the cockpit after the flight. He was astonished by how antiquated the whole cockpit appeared. The crew generally flew the old 737’s but had taken the ‘conversion’ course and it was their third Max flight. They explained various aspects of how the Max worked, one of which is that the aircraft/computer adjusts the angle of the approach so as to make it appear to the crew the same ‘view’ as if they were on the normal 737. I have probably explained it very badly as I’m totally non-technical, but I find the whole concept of the need for a computer to ‘fake’ the positioning of the aircraft terrible. The crew weren’t exactly that comfortable either, as they said if anything goes wrong, they don’t have the right data or visual to take the appropriate corrective actions.

The starting point of fitting the wrong engines seemed bad, but all the adjustments that have to be made by technology to correct that are bad enough but when added to the terrible and really basic manufacturing defects it doesn’t inspire confidence.

Ryanair has demonstrated that in their market, cost is everything so even having an aircraft with a bad rep may barely hurt them for now and there’s no doubting that they are operationally a brilliant airline, but they are betting the whole ranch on the Max when there must be a material risk that regulators stop allowing it to fly if there are further incidents.

Qantas is still one of the world’s safest airlines, and has never lost a passenger in a jet airliner incident – maybe the only long-established airline with that record.

They’ve had a few very close calls – the A380 out of Singapore was one. But as the old saying goes; would you rather fly with a lucky pilot, or a good pilot!

No airlines I’d avoid, but having a fascination for accident reports may have been a factor in being slightly anxious back in the 90s on an Air China 737 Beijing-Xi’an where the crew – in perfect English – announced that we would ‘give it a go’ at Xi’an as the visibility was <100m in fog. Suffice to say that we did a missed approach and diverted all the way back to Beijing and departed again a few hours later.

These threads just tell me I have a very different attitude to risk than most people. Whilst I’d possibly think twice about flying an airline banned from the EU, driving to the airport is likely far more dangerous.

As for the Chinese airlines, they are fine. And why would they not be? There are an awful lot of very wealthy Chinese people who will drive service standards higher and higher.

Who cares about the airframe – as the saying goes, that’s the insurer’s problem!

Rui N. wrote:

Colin MacKinnon wrote:

Qantas is still one of the world’s safest airlines, and has never lost a passenger in a jet airliner incident – maybe the only long-established airline with that record.

They’ve had a few very close calls – the A380 out of Singapore was one. But as the old saying goes; would you rather fly with a lucky pilot, or a good pilot!

They haven’t lost one because they repaired a 747-400 that was beyond economic repair to maintain the record. No dead on that accident though, which shows how some of these stats are quite ridiculous.

masaccio wrote:

driving to the airport is likely far more dangerous

Whilst you are correct, I’m sure when you drive to the airport you drive in as reasonably safe manner as is practical (you choose not to go 70 on a 30 road, you wear a seat belt, you don’t jump lights…).

So when you get to the airport, why wouldn’t you choose to fly in as reasonably safe a manner as you could?

You get my point? These are separate activities and you would limit your exposure to risk to a reasonable level in different ways for each activity.