You're right; wrong description for ET. At JRO, they had managed to lose my electronic ticket entirely and had to reissue a new one. That was the return flight. My wife's ticketing was intact. It took about 6 months to get mileage credit because I apparently didn't ever show as a paying customer... they might have put me in as a non-rev? It didn't seem like a big deal to the JRO agent, but it caused a lot of grief down the line. My UA connecting flight was intact. Eventually ET submitted info to UA showing I'd flown the JRO-ADD segment twice, same flight. I did tell United about it and the CSR told me after what I'd been through, I'd earned the extra miles. :-) Booked on ET stock.

The sticking strictly to regulations might have come up on the ADD-IAD segment, with a middle of the night refueling at FCO. You've never heard anyone bark as harshly as the FAs telling people they could not use the lavs while the refueling was in process. 1 hour, 15 minutes on the ground.

Correct. The first incident could have been anywhere. But am I incorrect in believing that US carrier pilot flying the 737 Max were not quickly brought up to speed in how to spot such a situation and turn off that system? Regarding it being a flawed aircraft, it it turns out that the system being discussed was at fault in either or both crashes, that's certainly the case. That doesn't change my belief that appropriate training can't safely mitigate the flaw until it's fully corrected.

This.

Ive never considered myself a nervous flier, but after today ill be avoiding the Max in the short term. Thats just me.

For me, it's pretty simple risk management. Airline travel is redonkuously safe these days, so incredibly low risk. But the "reward" if something goes wrong is...death.

So now we have a new aircraft type with two 100% fatal crashes in a very short span. One in the first six minutes of flight; one in the first 12 minutes.

Given the sterling rarity of ANY kind of airliner crash in the modern era, it gives me pause. While my risk assessment still informs me that air travel is astoundingly safe, the "reward" of death when something goes wrong makes me tick up my risk assessment on this aircraft type just a bit. Enough that I don't want to fly it until they figure out for certain what's wrong. And fix it.

Is that "hysteria?" Please. That's just some thinking. It may not be as math-heavy as some of our FTers here, but it is my thinking.

P.S. It's really not helping by using cutesy phrases like "hull loss." Um, we don't care about the dang hull; we care about the people inside. The dead people. They're fatal crashes.

I can't remember where I saw it, but I believe there was a news report that if the pilot was fighting against the MCAS for control over the aircraft, turning off the MCAS was as simple as toggling a switch. Anyone know if thats true ?

I feel exactly the same way. Personally and professionally, I put a lot of faith in technology, like modern airplanes, but these two incidents really concern me.

That's pretty much my thinking on it too.

Getting back onto a UA-specific topic. Any experience/advice to convince a UA agent to change a 737-MAX flight to something else with no change fee?

A few overly personal comments have been removed. Remember on FT we discuss the issues, not the posters. We all have opinions and FT is not the place to attack others for having concerns. Let's stic a non=personal attack discussion of the situation.


WineCountryUA
UA coModerator