As air travel is slowly returning to people’s lives, so are the question marks about the safety of the flights in part of the public opinion.
This time we are not going to talk about pandemic safety but for the safe taking off and landing of the aircraft, for the safe completion of the flight.
This note was triggered by the return of the renowned Boeing 737 Max to the skies.
Flights using this specific aircraft stopped after two accidents. On October the 29th 2018, when a Lion Air Boeing, which was operating the flight Jakarta-Indonesia, fell into the sea of Java in the Indian Ocean. On March the 10th 2019, an Ethiopian Airlines Boeing operating the flight Addis Ababa – Nairobi, crashed just after take-off in Ethiopia.
In September the Committee on Transport of the House of Representatives in the USA, which looked into the two fatal air crashes, issued a 288-page report, in which it ascertained numerous construction, administration and supervisory flaws during the development of the Boeing 737 Max.
The American members of parliament thought that Boeing prioritized profit over safety. In fact, they mention that the employees had worked under pressure, in order to have the new Boeing model prior to its Airbus counterpart.
In this context, the fact that the pilots and aircraft staff had not been sufficiently informed about the upgrading of the fatal aircrafts was highlighted.
The findings of the House of Representatives had been work of at least 18 months and it is part of the American Authorities investigation into the crash of the two aircrafts which led to the death of 346 people in total.
Unlike Boeing aircrafts, the Airbus(in which European countries participate) ones have won in the people’s conscience the feeling of safety.
The Airbus being in a way a “public” company, will not skimp on replacing a screw. It does not operate with a private company’s mentality. We are obviously for the private sector and the free market, but in the case of air companies we are dealing with human lives.
The pandemic has cost a lot to the air companies. Airbus was forced to reduce its staff by 10% (15,000 people).
Airbus problems are milder compared to the ones of its rival Boeing, which “has been staggering” since the time of the forced landing of all the 737 Max type air crafts worldwide.
The American company announced a reduction of 16,000 jobs in April 2020 and its balance-sheet is in a worse position.
Towards the end of March 2020 the company had 18 billion euros(20.2 billion dollars) gross cash plus a similar volume of available precautionary credit lines.
Boeing for the same period had negative own funds of 9 billion dollars and 39 billion dollars of debt.
The Boeing 737 Max is back, and we wish it safe travels. Citizens of the world would not like to have extra troubles added to them. Apart from which company’s vaccine to chose to be forced to chose which aircraft model they are going to travel by.
