greenpau

I feel very safe on United. Safer than on any other carrier. I’ve had a broad array of MX cancellations and a handful of airborne issues requiring a landing in 25 years as a very high velocity traveler. In all cases these operational decisions have been made out of an abundance of caution. UA has true professionals in the sky and on the ground. Their procedures and protocols for safety exist and are followed. Very few airlines can make this claim and stand by it with a huge fleet and across 5600 flights a day.

uastarflyer

preference list:

Widebody J, then PE (unless 757 lieflat confirmed)
Narrowbody F
Widebody exit row seat
Widebody aisle E+
Airbii exit row aisle
Airbii E+ aisle
73X exit aisle
73X E+ aisle
E- aisle, unless 90min or less then E+ middle
All other options

Perceived safety has zilch to do with that ordering

halls120

On those rare occasions when I'm in coach, I sit in a single digit aisle seat.

John Darcy

A dozen or so flights with United (I live in Australia) and I would not consider any other carrier for flights across the Pacific or within the US. Only when my required route is not available from United at a reasonable fare do I go to others, eg Delta.

As others are pointing out, the occurrence of aircraft accidents is at an all-time low and loss of life is more likely crossing the street than flying. With any airline.

So I guess my answer to your question is Yes.

char777

I work in the news media and consider myself more knowledgeable of the aviation industry than most people in my newsroom. I think there has been a tremendous amount of interest in aviation safety stories from the public ever since the first MAX grounding and ever since COVID. Those two events together have made people far more interested and anxious about every aspect of air travel. It seems like we're doing a lot more stories about airline mishaps – certainly a lot more than we were five years ago. Are the skies really less safe now? I don't really think so, but my colleagues and our viewers have a lot more interest in it. That includes stories about simple go-arounds at SFO or even medical emergency diversions. Those kinds of events weren't stories then, but they are now.

We spent a lot of airtime covering the tire falling off the 777 at SFO last week, and I think rightfully so – it's sheer luck that tire didn't fall on anyone, and nobody seems to really know yet how it fell off that plane in the first place. On the other hand, I chose not to include the story about the hydraulic failures on the A320 on SFO-MEX or on the 777 out of SYD, because, as far as I could tell, nobody's safety was ever at serious risk. Should I have, just to make that point to our viewers that all the safety design precautions and procedures worked? Maybe. I don't know.

It's always tricky trying to strike the right balance and not seem alarmist because many of these incidents are newsworthy, especially in the backdrop of what appears to be a serious safety and culture problem at Boeing. I made the point in an editorial meeting yesterday that we should be careful of the compounding effect this can have to lump every single incident together and implicate United, Boeing, or whichever party is the target. Some people listened to me; some people looked at me as if I just argued for the legalization of manslaughter.

hughw

Sure not good publicity at the very least.....today's NY Post banner headline. JUST PLAN DANGEROUS https://nypost.com

huey_driver

I have no problem whatsoever with United, or AA/DL. Dont really have a safety issue with the other US LCCs, just wont use them.
As long as UA requires their FOs to have more than 200 hours experience (Ethiopian Air) and their flight crews can read instruments and handle a simple runaway trim issue (vs letting the computer fly), I'm good.

thesun

I feel as safe flying United as I would any large US airline. Non-crash incidents happen all the time, they simply aren't reported on the news. Check out AV Herald if you want to have a better idea of how often: https://www.avherald.com/. The detail provided is also much better than you're ever going to get from modern news media.

Jeff767

AA and Delta are having many of the same issues. There is a rule that’s always been applicable to aviation. “Aviation rule of thermodynamics, If the heats on someone else it isn’t on you.”

LarryJ

AC143 was a complex event. A lot of factors came together to cause that accident. It's an interesting chain of events for those who are interested in such things.

I would recommend the book Freefall by William & Marilyn Mona Hoffer.

CALMSP

Fully feel safe. Have never had any concerns, but granted I worked for UA in flight ops.

txp

I was in Montreal at the time. The CBC reported that it was due to confusion between the metric system and the imperial system. I have no reasons to doubt the CBC coverage on this particular aspect. This can only be the airline's fault. I don't know who else to place the blame on.

This conclusion was corroborated by the findings of the Canadian Board of Inquiry, as I recall.

Thus, if anything similar were to happen to UA -- running out of fuel mid-flight without a leak -- it would be almost impossible to blame anyone else but UA.

Lux Flyer

No one is denying that played a role, but reducing AC143 to a unit conversion issue is an over-simplification of the many complex factors that interacted to result in the flight running out of fuel. The swiss cheese model is a great metaphor for a reason when it comes to safety events.

So, for example, if the fuel sensor had a production defect and gave incorrect readings in a niche scenario, leading a pilot to believe they had more fuel then they did, that would still be solely UA's [the airlines] fault?

txp

I just read parts of the Board of Inquiry's report. You are correct; the causes are complex. Several cascading factors contributed to the incident, any one of which, had it been addressed, would have been sufficient to avoid what happened.

However, the report makes the following 100% clear: the fault lies 100% with Air Canada. Whether it's the maintenance, the pilots, the communications, or the corporate culture, all of these causes mentioned in the report can be traced back to the airline.

I am only mentioning this to make a broader point: Corporate culture matters a lot in ensuring air safety.

Going back to my original post, I want to reaffirm my hope that United's corporate culture is conducive to safe travel!

txp

In that particular instance, and absent any other factors, no, the blame would fall on the fuel sensor manufacturer, not on UA.