Boeing 737 Max - can I avoid travelling on one?

bagand96

CKhalvashi said:

silvercar said:

I feel your pain. There is always a risk of a substitution, I would suspect that if you phoned up an airline (other than the low cost carriers) and pleaded your case they may move you to another flight.
I’ve flown on a 737 Max, brand new aircraft, lovely flight, 2 days before they were withdrawn from service. The thought of what could have happened makes me nervous to get back on one.

I flew on one of LOT's into Warsaw from Heathrow, however I feel a little nervous knowing what happened to others.

The issues were predominantly with Boeing's lies and a lack of pilot training caused by Boeing's lies. I know the A320 family reasonably well from a technical standpoint, but not any of Boeing's products.

I'd say it will be safe to assume that the flaws in the coding have been sorted out as part of the re-certification, and that adequate pilot training (still waiting for one major European customer to start complaining loudly about 2 type ratings for their crew and legally 2 aircraft types) will be part of the deal, however it will be as simple as if they don't want to pay for this, they don't fly the type.

Give them 6 months in service in reasonably large numbers and see what's happened in this time will be my advice at this time.

Your large European customer added 75 MAXs to their orders in December 2020, so we can assume they have come to a deal with Boeing regarding additional training and introduction costs.  They will have leveraged their strong position and Boeing's relative weakness, just like they did in 2002 with the 737-800 order.

CKhalvashi

bagand96 said:

CKhalvashi said:

silvercar said:

I feel your pain. There is always a risk of a substitution, I would suspect that if you phoned up an airline (other than the low cost carriers) and pleaded your case they may move you to another flight.
I’ve flown on a 737 Max, brand new aircraft, lovely flight, 2 days before they were withdrawn from service. The thought of what could have happened makes me nervous to get back on one.

I flew on one of LOT's into Warsaw from Heathrow, however I feel a little nervous knowing what happened to others.

The issues were predominantly with Boeing's lies and a lack of pilot training caused by Boeing's lies. I know the A320 family reasonably well from a technical standpoint, but not any of Boeing's products.

I'd say it will be safe to assume that the flaws in the coding have been sorted out as part of the re-certification, and that adequate pilot training (still waiting for one major European customer to start complaining loudly about 2 type ratings for their crew and legally 2 aircraft types) will be part of the deal, however it will be as simple as if they don't want to pay for this, they don't fly the type.

Give them 6 months in service in reasonably large numbers and see what's happened in this time will be my advice at this time.

Your large European customer added 75 MAXs to their orders in December 2020, so we can assume they have come to a deal with Boeing regarding additional training and introduction costs.  They will have leveraged their strong position and Boeing's relative weakness, just like they did in 2002 with the 737-800 order.

This is very true.

I would assume that Boeing will be stumping up the type rating costs (not sure if these can be flown exactly as the Boeing equivalent to CCQ or whether it's 2 full TR's, if the latter, expect the transition to MAX to be base by base rather than mix and match) and possibly if the former any additional recurrent sim requirements, but this is a debate that's too technical for this forum and probably not what the OP needs.

To directly answer the question, if booking with a non-MAX operator, very few of them will be available for ACMI (which simply put is when one airline rents a plane from another airline, with the second airline's crew operating the flights) in the foreseeable future, as this tends to be where a portion of older aircraft end up after some time. The largest ACMI operator in the UK is an all-Airbus operator, so this shouldn't be a large concern.

bagand96

CKhalvashi said:

bagand96 said:

CKhalvashi said:

silvercar said:

I feel your pain. There is always a risk of a substitution, I would suspect that if you phoned up an airline (other than the low cost carriers) and pleaded your case they may move you to another flight.
I’ve flown on a 737 Max, brand new aircraft, lovely flight, 2 days before they were withdrawn from service. The thought of what could have happened makes me nervous to get back on one.

I flew on one of LOT's into Warsaw from Heathrow, however I feel a little nervous knowing what happened to others.

The issues were predominantly with Boeing's lies and a lack of pilot training caused by Boeing's lies. I know the A320 family reasonably well from a technical standpoint, but not any of Boeing's products.

I'd say it will be safe to assume that the flaws in the coding have been sorted out as part of the re-certification, and that adequate pilot training (still waiting for one major European customer to start complaining loudly about 2 type ratings for their crew and legally 2 aircraft types) will be part of the deal, however it will be as simple as if they don't want to pay for this, they don't fly the type.

Give them 6 months in service in reasonably large numbers and see what's happened in this time will be my advice at this time.

Your large European customer added 75 MAXs to their orders in December 2020, so we can assume they have come to a deal with Boeing regarding additional training and introduction costs.  They will have leveraged their strong position and Boeing's relative weakness, just like they did in 2002 with the 737-800 order.

This is very true.

I would assume that Boeing will be stumping up the type rating costs (not sure if these can be flown exactly as the Boeing equivalent to CCQ or whether it's 2 full TR's, if the latter, expect the transition to MAX to be base by base rather than mix and match) and possibly if the former any additional recurrent sim requirements, but this is a debate that's too technical for this forum and probably not what the OP needs.

To directly answer the question, if booking with a non-MAX operator, very few of them will be available for ACMI (which simply put is when one airline rents a plane from another airline, with the second airline's crew operating the flights) in the foreseeable future, as this tends to be where a portion of older aircraft end up after some time. The largest ACMI operator in the UK is an all-Airbus operator, so this shouldn't be a large concern.

As you say it's a fairly technical debate, and I'm not sure of all the details either. I don't think it's a new type rating, even now. But I think the differences training course is now far more robust than it was and may include SIM time. (not hard to be more robust than it previously was - a couple of hours CBT)