Alex909

The issue of old vs. new is complex. In engineering school they drilled the "bathtub curve" into us (avoid very new and very old). But the particular maintenance regime of airliners might mitigate some of the bathtub effects.

When people think about safety, they tend to focus on simple "common sense" things such as age. But your wife might also want to consider the potentially more grave impact of newer, highly computerized flight controls on safety. A newer, more automated plane (ie. A330) might be more unsafe than a very old 767 if the flight crew gets into unusual situations (google AF447 for a recent case), and if the crew can't understand or deal with the complex failure modes and computerized messages of the various flight control systems in time to avoid a serious accident. In more recent airplane designs the control system and the way it responds to input and provides feedback is completely different from the older models, and (in some very unlikely but catastrophic situations) that can me decisive.

Certain design features of the last 20 years (ie. non-visual feedback joystick-based control vs visual feedback based control joke, non-intuitive thrust levers) have been controversial with us in the engineering community for a very long time (the president of the German "Cockpit" pilot association pointed this out to me as a major concern of their members with Airbus as early as 1994) More recently, experts in the US have chimed in on this as well. Captain Sullenberger, for example, has participated in a re-enactment of AF447 where he clearly points out issues with Airbus joystick-style automation and how they contributed to the crew getting into an impossible "deep stall at high altitude" situation (ask me for details if interested)

Given the complexity of the new computerized controls and the fact that Hawaiian pilots are still in the process of transitioning from Boeing to Airbus, I would personally still choose the old DL767 over an A330, at least for a few more years. Would be interested how others on this forum feel about this.

Note that I am not picking on Airbus alone here. In their models since the 767, Boeing has unfortunately introduced similar over-automation. See, for example, the complex alternate modes of the 777. But to their credit, Boeing have stayed away from the most controversial Airbus "innovations" such as joysticks.