You could say the same thing about any corporate CEO (try the CEOs of CNN, CBS, Warner Brothers, and Facebook for prevarication), celebrity (Jussie Smollett anyone?), or politician (too darned many to name). My point is that they did not admit causing the accident, they admitted to adding confusion to the cockpit at a time when you really don't want it. That means their software definitely needs some fixes and improvement but it is NOT the mea culpa some here seem to try to make it.

Having worked operations for quite some time, mistake-proof comes with the operator having enough experience to use the checklists properly. There is a big difference between 360 and 5000 or 2000 or even 1500 hours. The co-pilot on the doomed ET flight made multiple critical mistakes early in the process which he shouldn't have even with 360 hours experience and most likely never would have if he'd had 2000 hours. Do you let your new driver drive a packed bus unaided with only 360 hours behind the wheel? If you think the avionics are the issue, let's dig into the areas where the avionics could have misled the pilots into the runaway stab situation or locked up (like Toyota's problem with uncontrolled acceleration after bit flips a couple decades ago). If you're going to keep claiming the issue is basic aircraft design regarding the COG with the new engines, then point to the evidence that supports that because the public evidence to date doesn't. If you want to modify your argument to say the COG or pitch tendencies aren't really the issue but they led to MCAS therefore ... whatever ... then again, it's software, not the basic physical design of the aircraft. Some of the arguments presented here would be like saying DEN check-in is an unmitigated mess because the artwork and advertisements in the central hall and train stops stink.

The interior of the aircraft also doesn't have anything to do with the flight performance of the basic design, with or without new engines in the MAX configuration. I agree the new lavatories are ungodly and a good enough reason for me to book away from these airframes but they have nothing to do with the aircraft's lift or pitch performance, nothing (that we know of) to do with any of the flight control software OR hardware. Could you equip the 737 frames for wider seats and more leg room? Sure you could -- you'd carry fewer passengers but Air Force One doesn't transport as many people as Lufthansa's 747-8s or 747-400s either. Trump's personal 757 also carries a lot fewer passengers than one of UA's but in a lot more comfort at a lot LOT more cost per seat.

no direct information but looking at the delivery schedule and using a conservative 2 flights a day, my guess is at least 250,000 flights and likely more.
And at the point of grounding, was doing at least 750+ daily flights (again at a conservative 2 flights a day) and rapidly increasing with new deliveries.

UA gets 3-4 flights a day for 737-800s,

So at 3 flights day, the order of magnitude estimate would be nearly 400K MAX flights and adding 1K+ daily.

Boeing's CEO reflects most CEOs for the past 30 years. CEOs have like a five year horizon and look at racking up bonuses for the next 5 years. If you ever worked closely with the senior executive tier you can see their true goal and the manipulation. If bonus compensation was paid out over performance measured over the next 10 years you might see better CEO performance. Leadership starts from the top, and ultimate responsibility for the MAX crash lies with the CEO. The 737's interior is related to the animosity towards the 737 MAX because after flying on this plane for almost 50 years, the flying experience on this plane for at least the last 15 years had been like a MAX nosedive, so the sink & lav another nail in the 737 coffin, the hard seats and short seat pans mores nails in the 737 coffin, and now MCAS & MAX, maybe the final NAIL in the 737 coffin for many. The 737 MAX in some sense is a final 737 assault on the passenger, a final coffin nail in a long series of nails.

I don't like the cramped interior of modern planes either but it's utter nonsense to blame that all on the 737MAX. I flew a LH A321 yesterday and the seats were harder than any 737 I've flown (granted, I haven't been on the MAX yet). The rows were just as cramped -- the only reason I wasn't crammed in like everyone else was that I was in 11D behind the crew seat which was moved forward of the other seats in row 10 (and 10E felt free to put her water bottle and book in the basket behind the crew seat for her easy reach). The UA A319 I flew into DEN the day before was just as cramped although I was in the front in 2B so had plenty of padding on the seat. The sardine-like packing is pretty universal among airlines now -- and again, I place that on the airlines for specifying those configurations rather than the aircraft manufacturers who are meeting their customers' demands.

Again, let's separate topics and get to facts on the 737 MAX itself. The 737 itself is one of the most successful airframes in aviation history, historically one of the safest to fly, so claiming some decades-long assault on passengers is just ridiculous. Generalized complaints in pilot feedback to FAA are interesting and deserve investigation but not quite in the same league as real specific problem reports. This piling on with complaints about seats and IFE just takes away from any hard specifics about the MAX and its grounding.

So my booked flight at the end of August is showing one leg on a 737MAX (actually the return in September). I know there have been some reports that the FAA may have cleared the plane by then (and I am assuming this is why the 737MAX is shown as the plane). When booking the flight I did not notice there was a 737MAX on one leg or I would not have selected that particular routing and I am not certain it was the originally scheduled plane for that route but it was the fourth leg of four for the reservation so it may be I overlooked it (although surprised as I had options and the MAX is not an option I would choose). I am concerned by the plane and have no wish to be one of the Guinea pigs.

1. Has United issued a policy about being able to change the routing or an I going to have to rely on SDC and fare bucket availability?
2. Any suggestion United is going to highlight in the reservation this routing has a 737MAX leg? (If that had been highlighted I certainly would not have chosen that routing).

TIA.

Sorry that I worded my post poorly. It's my understanding that prior to the major change in 2013, US commercial flights didn't need two pilots with 1500 hours. Is this wrong?

Correct, the first officer could have fewer than 1500 hours. In practice, however, the major airlines in the US had been requiring first officers to hold ATP certificates for long before that, so there weren't many passenger 737s flying around the US with non-ATP certificated pilots. Regional airlines were, however, accepting pilots with less experience. (In fact, Colgan Flight 3407 is almost entirely responsible for the increase to 1500 hours, and there hasn't been a mass casualty accident by a US airline since then, although both pilots involved in the accident had more than 1500 hours.)

That's correct, but it was not a factor. Due to the competitive job market, and a relatively large supply of qualified pilots, airlines were hiring pilots with much more experience than today's 1,500hr requirement (as well as all of the other experience requirements for an ATP). It took 5,000+ hours to be hired by a mainline carrier to work as a flight engineer.

As an example, I was hired to fly 19-seat turboprops in 1991. At the time, I had over 2,400 hours and an ATP. The best I was able to do at around 1,500 hours (1,450 IIRC) was a job flying Grand Canyon tours in a 8-seat, single-engine Cessna. Jobs flying airline jets took several thousand hours including PIC time in turbines (usually turboprops; sometimes corporate jets). In 1996 I was hired to fly cargo jets with about 5,500 hours. I was still "under qualified" for the major airlines.

The job market changed through the 2000s and we ended up in a position where pilots with much lower times were being hired. That's when the FAA increased the minimum requirements because the job market was no longer ensuring qualified applicants on its own.

Angle of attack sensors don't indicate (or measure) pitch. As the name would imply, they measure angle of attack. Even neglecting the incidence of the wing, the difference is non-trivial in the case we're most concerned about (a climb).

https://i.stack.imgur.com/PzCNc.png

The Colgan 3407 crash helped define the changes in requirements, purely a feel good political response.

I fly mostly 737s, and they're mostly full to the point of gate agents asking for 15 or 20 people to gate check. I don't hear anybody talking about 737s being tarnished. I don't hear anybody at the talking about the plane itself unless it's late, and then it's only about it being late. The NG has had decades to wring out the statistics of low probability failures. A "clean sheet" design is a big box of making, discovering, and fixing new design flaws.