Air France Frequence Plus - Poll: Would you book Air France

While Air France is generally considered to be an excellent and safe carrier, recent events would stop me from booking them - how about you?

Air France's safety record is discussed here:

http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/general_aviation/read.main/4435101/

Those statistics are ridiculous. Certainly losing a ship is bad but the overall number of fatalities - the stat that I am most concerned about becoming ;) - is on par with other major carriers. They are not statistically unsafe at all, IMO.

And, just out of curiosity, do you often find yourself booking them or considering booking them, or is this a purely hypothetical discussion from your perspective?

Do they have any Boeing metal?

Do they have any Boeing metal?

Yes.
http://www.airfleets.net/flottecie/Air%20France.htm

To the OP, recent AF events will not affect my willingness to fly them, but I still fly airlines that have had airliners flown into tall towers.

If I refused to fly any airline that ever had a crash or some other safety issue, I'd have to stay home. The fact that AF's latest crash is more recent than those of other airlines is irrelevant. They will, unfortunately, pass this distinction to someone else - hopefully not soon. (Yes, I read the airliners.net post linked to the first post. It oversimplifies and compares apples with oranges, as many of the comments on it there point out.)

If you really need a poll FT has a convenient tool for that

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/faq.php?faq=vb3_reading_posting#faq_vb3_polls

Please follow in our Air France forum. Ocn Vw 1K, Moderator, TravelBuzz.

I'm going to wait on booking flights on an A330 until they know more about what brought this one down. Reading the other stories about the Qantas A330 that had trouble with the computing system/autopilot, I'd like to see more inquiries into possible problems with the A330.

I'm going to wait on booking flights on an A330 until they know more about what brought this one down. Reading the other stories about the Qantas A330 that had trouble with the computing system/autopilot, I'd like to see more inquiries into possible problems with the A330.

I do have a few bookings on 330s. Not going to change them.

As to flying AF, yes I would if needed.

This said, I would agree that their safety record is not great. The YYZ accident and now this do seem to point to either management or cultural issues. Reminds me a bit of Korean in the nineties, or China Airlines also in the nineties, with too many ex-military folks prone to taking chances? Of course both have since improved considerably and I would now fly them; back then I would have stayed away from CI. Of course, simply comparing the number of hull losses, as in the quote web site http://www.airfleets.net/flottecie/Air%20France.htm is unfair since AF is a much larger airline. But still their numbers, when compared with say KH or BA, must tell us something.

In the YYZ accident, how could the captain have possibly landed the plane past the middle of the runway and in a storm? Here, why did they fly into the storm?

Of course, might not be so much an issue of culture but of management pressure to save fuel. Only AF people would know and one would not really expect them to come out of the closet, I suppose.

Perhaps AF had been lucky too often?

not sure how AF is different from other airlines.

if anything, id think it would be a boeing vs airbus issue.

OTOH if Stranger is correct with regards to management practices, that would certainly be interesting.

Have booked quite a few trips with AF after the accident; even a couple of flights on the A340 which is very similar to the A330 and have 100% faith in AF's machinery and handling as well as their highly competent cockpit crew.

Even as horrible as it sounds, there were more road traffic related deaths in Ireland last year than the total fatal accidents caused by all of the EU carriers combined, so I'm more worried crossing the street than getting into an aeroplane.

With relation to the A330, some companies like AerLingus only operate the A330 on their long haul destinations, and have never had any fatal accidents as long as these have been in service...

While Air France is generally considered to be an excellent and safe carrier, recent events would stop me from booking them - how about you?

Air France's safety record is discussed here:

http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forums/general_aviation/read.main/4435101/

Well, I've already decided not to buy a Ferrari because they have lots of crashes, BA777's are no good either, I don't eat corn anymore in case it is genetically modified, UK Beef is out of course, they still can't prove that mobile phones are safe...

Honestly, I find this question ridiculous and, more to the point, given that we are so soon after the events, that at least two FT members have lost relatives and colleagues I find this very inappropriate.

I do closely follow numerous forums discussing the AF 447 catastrophe, here and the more professional forums like PPrune. However, I do refrain from posting, here or there, because first I do not believe to be able to add anything more than express my deepest sympathy to all the families who have lost someone in this tragedy. And second because with almost no information available - what we do know amounts to "almost nothing" - I do not think it would be serious to speculate on the reasons for the crash and thus draw conclusions about Air France being safe or not.

However, this thread, after having ignored it since it's been on the AF forum on Flyertalk, now prompted me to react.

First, because I almost find it bad taste to discuss such a question while there still is no information whatsoever on the destiny of the flight and its victims. There are people out there who have lost a wife, husband, child, close friend, with the only clue that their bodies are floating somewhere between Brazil and Senegal. I may be oversensitive, but still.

Second, because second only to the public reactions on the website of Le Figaro it is here that I have read the greatest amount of uninformed and unrational bu**hit anywhere on the entire www. I mean stuff like this:
if anything, id think it would be a boeing vs airbus issue.

The A vs. B issue is one discussed between 15 years olds on airliners.net, but to seriously suggest that the choice for one or the other of the leading manufacturers of civil airplanes in the world has an impact on safety is just... well, I am missing words. BTW, Air France has both Boeings and Airbusses in their fleet. And no, Airbus is not a French manufacturer.

I just picked out that one to give an example, but there are more, and the unquestioned quotation of hull loss statistics is another one (e.g., it just so happened that the plane following the Continental DC-10 on the CDG runway was an Air France Concorde. Could have been a plane by Qantas, who were still flying to CDG at the time. In that way, QF would have lost its top spot.), quotes like "why did they fly in to a storm", etc.

In any case, as long as we do not know more, the discussion is pointless. And as long as we do not know more, I do have no basis whatsoever to rethink my personal "assessment" (i.e. a somewhat but by no way completely informed gut feeling) of AF's security philosophy and measures.

Closed pending review.