Well, the 737 MAX isn’t a valid alternative to anything while it’s grounded.
Maybe the concept of the MAX being a replacement was valid but, based on Boeing’s blundering development of the plane, can you really fault anyone for avoiding it?
Will the MAX fly again? Will it crash again? Will passengers trust it again?
Too many unknown questions make it hard to plan ahead.
Actually, it's really not. United has already bought MAXes to replace other planes, but to replace their 757 they waited Boeing new annoncement that was supposed to be this year (except Boeing delayed it to next year a few months ago).
It just occurred to me that Boeing has been quite successful with branding ("Dreamliner", "MAX"), but maybe wishes it hadn't been... Everyone now knows that MAX is bad, but how many people can tell the difference between a 737-8 and a 737-800?
Boeing still may rebrand the plane and stop calling it the MAX, as you say it was only ever a marketing name. The plane is certified as the “737-8”, “737-9”, etc.
I have been thinking about how to implement that after the MAX starts flying again. Flight search interfaces don’t seem to filter on equipment. And of course, equipment gets changed at times, so you may book one aircraft and have a different one swapped in on the ramp. I wonder if after you have checked in, and the airline swaps in a MAX, if you can get credit for your ticket if you refuse to board a MAX? I would guess not. (Yes, I know airlines try to avoid changing equipment because it causes reseating hassle and crew scheduling hassle. But it does happen)
Seems like you could either target routes that don't fly 737s at all, just much bigger or much smaller planes. Or you could stick to carriers that don't own any 737 MAX 8's such as Amtrak and SNCF.
It may not filter on equipment, but they do show you what kind of plane you are flying when you are buying the ticket so you can decide right then if you want to buy something else instead.
Fleets are often completely from one manufacturer. For example, easyJet is all Airbus while Ryanair is all Boeing. I can reasonably easily avoid all Ryanair flights in favour of easyJet.
I flew about the same, fortunately never on a MAX. That being said I'm in the same boat, you couldn't pay me enough money to take a ride on a plane that the pilot literally cannot fly without the MCAS system functioning perfectly.
Maybe I'm just blissfully ignorant to how bad all the planes in the air are... but I feel like pilots would be screaming bloody murder if they were all as bad as the MAX.
If the MCAS completely disengages, the plane is perfectly flyable under most conditions. It will just pitch up more than other planes in turns, which could be manually fixed by adjusting the trim. The MCAS system is set to automatically adjust the trim, and the crashes were caused by it doing so when there was no need.
>literally cannot fly without the MCAS system functioning perfectly.
This is not the problem. The aircraft's performance is within the bounds of "perfectly acceptable for what it is" but it is too different from the existing 737s in a particular area. If the portion of the MCAS that handles this particular area were just turned off the MAX would fly fine but it wouldn't be close enough to a 737 for anyone to say with a straight face that pilots can fly without retraining. This need for pilot compatibility lead to a faulty implementation of MCAS of which flies the plane into the ground in certain conditions.
That's a silly comparison. The risk of death from flying in a MAX is still wildly lower than the risk of dying in the safest car on a mile by mile basis.
You didn't call anyone stupid, you asked a passive aggressive question designed to demean without advancing any worldviews or assertions of your own. That's fucking stupid.
The Max wasn't supposed to replace the 757 except in a few niche cases. As mentioned in the article, the nma launch delay being put off to 2020 lost Boeing this contract.
Pilots have been saying this for a long time. But it started with anger towards the constant expansion of the 737 (the 900 has some additional limits that hit hard when icing conditions in some places like Denver). The 757 was the sports car of airliners but with a high price tag (and it never really displaced the 727). As for the A321...it had a rocky start.
757-300 and 787-8 have similar seat counts, but the latter is overkill in terms of range and somewhere in the ballpark of double the cost of an a321. Not to mention that pilots that are type certified for larger twin-aisle aircraft tend to be more senior and expensive than those that are certified for midrange single aisle aircraft.
The A321 (and the 757) is a lot more flexible, can carry more cargo, and has better performance.