Weekend survey: Do maintenance problems make you reluctant to fly?

Do Southwest Airlines’ recent maintenance problems, which led to widespread aircraft inspections, make you think twice about flying?

If you’ve been paying attention to some of the media coverage (and how can you not?) you might be forgiven for thinking the sky is falling. Or, at least, that planes are falling out of the sky.

Truth is, no one has died — yet.

But are you a little hesitant to board a plane, knowing that planes are flying that may not be airworthy?

Here’s the survey:


Are you less likely to fly on Southwest? Or does your mistrust of the inspection process extend to the entire airline industry?

Also, do you think you’ll fly less because of the problems, or is this just a minor issue?

  • cjr

    Well, I wasn’t going to be flying Southwest anyways. But yes, there is plenty of mistrust to go around to the airline industry as a whole.

    The fact is, maintenance issues like this are nothing new, and they will continue as long as the airlines prefer to cut corners for the sake of the bottom line.

  • SirWired

    This was totally NOT Southwest’s fault. Boeing had a defined maintenance schedule for fatigue crack inspection. The regular inspections for this kind of fatigue were not scheduled by Boeing to happen for quite some time.

  • http://www.thetravelinggiraffe.com Crissy

    I watch Air Disasters and if that didn’t stop me from flying then the occasional near disaster isn’t going to. I do not watch episodes though within a few days of flying though.

    One thing I have learned from the show is that most people do care and try to keep planes safe. Often it is human error that is the issue and until we can get rid of humans we need to accept that there will be errors. There is hope though, just look at how much safer it is to fly then it was years ago.

  • Ron

    While I am not reluctant to fly, I will be avoiding Southwest and older model 737′s.

    I am avoiding them on two counts….
    1. They fly a fleet of planes that have a history of these issues.
    2. I find it incredulous to believe that within weeks of being fined for not inspecting their planes properly, one of their planes has an issue that can be tied to missing or inadequate inspections.

    This plane was inpsected only weeks before and it still had an issue? So, either the plane is inherently unsafe, or the inspections are inadequate. Is Boeing or Southwest at fault here?

  • Steve

    My wife had just departed on Southwest when the incident happened last week, and our only concern was whether the inspections would interfere with her planned flight home. (They didn’t).

    I’m not minimizing how scary it must have been for the passengers on the flight that developed the hole in the roof, nor am I saying that airlines and the FAA shouldn’t be working hard to figure out how to prevent future incidents. That said, the media sensationalized this as they do most non-fatal aviation incidents. I heard more than one commentator say it was “miraculous” that no one was killed or seriously injured; I would disagree with that assessment. The pilots did exactly what they were trained to do in the event of a loss of cabin pressure, and the result was that everyone made it back to the ground safely. And planes are designed to withstand something like this without totally falling apart.

  • Catherine

    The airline’s apathetic (sometimes hostile!) attitude toward customers combined with their shameless money grubbing makes for a dangerous combination for assuring proper maintenance. An industry that has a proven record of lying to, cheating, and stealing from its customers does not garner much trust.

  • Carrie Charney

    Considering how many planes fly each day without incident, I’ll keep taking my chances. I’d rather travel than not. The TSA gives me more reason not to fly, but it doesn’t stop me.

  • Geldhart

    Nothing happened. The crack opened up, the pilots did an emergency decent, passengers had oxygen, and the plane landed. They did a more careful check of all the planes, and those with problems will be fixed.

    Boeing’s maintenance requirements didn’t mention this issue, either because it hasn’t happened yet, or this was an unusual plane. Either way, the maintenance requirements will be updated.

    Bad stuff happens with cars all the time as well, and BTW cars aren’t always inspected and maintained properly. At least with passenger airplanes, they HAVE to be inspected by professsionals.

  • http://nmdfreelance.com Nancy

    Boeing has a long history of cutting corners to make a fast buck, including undercutting bids to win a contract – knowing full well they will come in way over budget, time and again.

    Boeing, in the aerospace industry, are the carpetbaggers and snake oil salesmen so prevalent in the 1800′s. The government doesn’t do anything to stop them, even when they’re caught bribing officials to win their contracts.

    It’s not Southwest I don’t trust, it’s Boeing.

  • cjr

    “I will be avoiding Southwest and older model 737′s.”

    And how exactly are you going to avoid older 737′s?

    I fly mostly Frontier and United. Neither inform us when they change the plane (and our seat locations in the process), but only when the times of the flight are adjusted.

    So, you may not even know what plane you will be flying until you arrive. What are you going to do then? Refuse to fly? Good luck trying to get a refund on that.

  • DJP

    This isnt a southwest airlines fault.

    The issue goes to 737s as a while and for that matter all aircraft.

    Is it a faulty design on boeings part that are not in other Boeing 737 aircraft….?

    wear and tear happens on middle aged aircraft. The problem is that its hard to see unless you know what to look for which goes to the heart of the system…they look at places where they no mistakes or problems have occurred before…not an anticipate-based approach.

    A beeter metric in checking this is the number of takeoffs and landings a plane has done in its lifetime and where they were located to see if there is a pattern. For example if these southwest planes primarily flew out West anywhere from Phoenix and San Diego up to Seattle then the airplane is going to be affected because the local atmosphere has a higher salt content than in the east because of the Pacific Ocean winds. This isnt just with takeoff/landing but in the air they fly.

    I wonder if Alaska has similar 737s in their fleet….could there planes be affected.

  • Martin

    It does make you think twice, which is probably the same number of times that Boeing and Southwest are going to check these planes to make sure it doesn’t happen again. And I just happen to be flying on a Southwest 737-300 in the morning. Hopefully it was recently inspected!

  • Rich

    The chance that something like this will happen is vanishingly small. Even when it does happen, the chances are you will be ok. Far more serious things to worry about in my opinion.