A 737 Pilot’s Thoughts on the Boeing Aircraft

I’ve been flying the 737-800 for just over 11 years and in that time I’ve logged over 6,000 pilot-in-command hours in the aircraft. Here’s my simple appraisal of the jet based on this firsthand experience: the design and engineering of the 737 is superior to every other airline jet I’ve also logged over a thousand pilot hours in, including the DC-9-80, DC-10, and F-100.

The 737-800 Next Gen and Max are safe, reliable, engineered and built to the highest standards in the commercial aircraft industry. I’d rather fly a Boeing jet than any other airliner flying today.

I’m not alone in this thinking: the pilot’s union–my union–which represents the pilots of the world’s largest airline, issued a statement that says the Boeing 737 Max is safe to fly. The FAA has issued a similar statement. The FAA oversight of U.S. airline operations has resulted in an air travel system that is the safest in the world.

In my experience, the current media hysteria–especially on social media–is pointless and counterproductive.

The social media hysteria over the 737-Max  is absurd.

The reality of the situation is this: both Boeing and Airbus have made advanced airliners affordable and available worldwide. The problem is, not all countries have the aviation oversight infrastructure to ensure the safety of flight operations, to include regulation, inspection, enforcement pertaining to maintenance, pilot standards, training standards and pilot experience.

Passengers in the far corners of the world see a shiny new Airbus or Boeing jet at their departure point and make assumptions about the above factors based on the modern appearance of the airliner–but often, the exact opposite is true: there is little or no aviation oversight, low pilot and maintenance experience levels, poor or no record keeping,  little inspection or enforcement, and generally a low-quality flight operation.

Every US pilot of a 737 is trained to recognize and handle every abnormal situation that occurs in flight, which is a factor in every airliner flying, regardless of make or model. The flying public can be certain that their pilots in the United States, Canada, Europe, most of Asia and all Down Under airlines have the same training, experience and capabilities. Period.

The news hype–especially the screaming of digital media–is a tragic side effect unrelated to the facts of the recent airline accidents so widely reported. The reality is, above and beyond the chaotic noise of social media and and the reckless bandwagon pronouncements of those who’d promote themselves or an unfounded agenda: once the investigation is complete, we will have answers–not until.

Meanwhile, I will continue to fly the Boeing 737 Next Gen and Max based on my firsthand experience that assures me the aircraft is well-engineered, sturdy, reliable and most importantly, absolutely safe.

Air Travel and Anarchy

“I say let the world go to hell, but I should always have my tea.” –Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Nothing brings out the worst in people like air travel. Sadly, flying has become the crossroads of selfishness and self-righteousness, a road-rage hybrid unmasked, more akin to mob action as a result of being seated together rather than in isolated vehicles, but angry, loose-tempered and looking for a reason to go off just the same. Throw in a fashionable side order of latent outrage at anything individually determined to be offensive and you have the airborne tinderbox that regularly explodes into passenger non-compliance, misconduct, diversion and ultimately, yet another ruined travel experience.

Maybe in days past there was less opportunity to exact compensation for perceived slights. Maybe there’s righteous consumer outrage over the corpcomm buzzword “inconvenience” overlaid on any type of service disaster. Mix the two well, sprinkle with a litigious seasoning and pour into a social media crust, then bake on the internet for less than thirty minutes. We’re serving up outrage–and selfies–get it while it’s hot.

That tired, sad urban legend-gone-digitally viral cry for attention would be little more than a Spam-ish nuisance except for one elephantine reality: it’s dangerous as hell in flight.

In a world that prizes personal choice, self-importance, sacrosanct self-image, and the all-important digital self-reflection (“That’s us in ____!”), compliance is a dirty word. Problem is, flying is a difficult, at times risky endeavor that relies on discipline and its ugly stepchild, compliance, from the cockpit all way back to the aft lav.

Unfortunately, the all-important “me” is societally- and media-sanctioned, so individual choices are thereby easily disconnected from consequences in the aircraft emergency crew commands as well as in the midair violence wall-papered over in corp-speak as “passenger non-compliance.” That often starts with choices easily blamed these days on those offering the choice rather than those making the choice itself.

Crewmembers are attacked, other passengers are physically (or worse) assaulted, but the individual acting, “non-complying,” is seldom held responsible for the consequences of an individual choice.  Sadly, it gets so much worse, so much more dangerous.

But I can hear it already: yeah, but I’m me. That’s a two-headed monster–first, the perception that others are the problem and second, that you aren’t one of the “others,” but you are. The command “take nothing with you” in an emergency evacuation is based on the life-and-death certification of the aircraft: 90 seconds, timed with a full load of passengers from evacuation command to everyone safely clear of an aircraft that had no luggage aboard.

In real life, enough of the “I’m me” others refuse to comply with the command to take nothing with you (“I’m not leaving without my [fill in self-absorbed priority]!”) at the expense of those seated at the far end of the tested, proven, but now destroyed time to escape a burning aircraft. That can and will be fatal, yet the death of some is lower on the hierarchy of self in an “everybody gets a trophy” legacy of some “others.”

Airline regulatory agencies like the FAA and NTSB do little to actually enforce compliance. Even beyond the glaring headlines attending an aircraft emergency evacuation sabotaged by passenger non-compliance, there’s little that regulators can and will do to eliminate flight risk factors other than to urge passenger “compliance.”

There again, we careen headlong into the absolution of “I’m me.”  The FAA recently recognized the disastrous inflight potential for a lithium ion battery fire in a very commonplace piece of technology. The remedy? Screening? Enforcement? Legal consequences?

Nope. Just, “we told you not to.”

Granted,  you’re not one of the “others” who’d readily drag their bags along on an emergency evacuation at the risk of other passengers’ lives. You don’t over consume alcohol and disrupt a flight. And you don’t ignore the toothless “prohibition” and bring your very expensive but hazardous phone on board.

But they’re out there, self-justified, media-enriched, societally excused, and dangerous as hell.

Better hope “they” aren’t on “your” flight.