Booking flights for summer travel is in high gear so here’s a question: Will you fly on a Boeing 737 Max, assuming its anti-stall problem gets fixed to the satisfaction of the FAA? For a couple reasons, I don’t think I will; but more importantly, I question whether the 737 Max will ever fly again.

For those who don’t know the backstory, the 737 Max is the latest iteration of Boeing’s 737 aircraft which first started flying in the late 1960s. Its stabilization system, and perhaps a flawed iterative design, have been blamed for two crashes that killed 346 people. The planes have been grounded until further notice, and American Airlines, for example, has cancelled all 737 Max flights through August 19. (If you are looking for more details about the system/design issue, I found this article interesting, Is the Boeing 737 Max Worth Saving? )

When planes crash, we eventually learn what happened (black boxes and the like), and in most instances the crash is caused by something specific that has little to do with the plane itself. Birds fly into engines as happened during the Miracle on the Hudson, improperly stowed hazardous materials catch fire and a Valuejet plane plummets into the oblivion of the Everglades, or some form of human error leads to a catastrophe. Most of the time, it’s weather, terrorism or pilot error – but not a flaw with the plane itself. And even in the case of TWA flight 800 which exploded in 1996 after faulty wiring ignited the plane’s fuel, that was a problem on one aircraft that wasn’t detected on the whole fleet of then 747s.

Boeing’s problem impacts 344 planes operating around the world, and the issue affects all the planes due to the overall design and the systems that keep them in the air. When planes fall out of the sky because of a flawed design or a botched system, consumers will rightfully panic and it’s hard to imagine the flying public embracing the 737 Max, even if it gets the thumbs up from the FAA.Read More