https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/12/feels-like-the-enemy-is-within-boeing-airplanes-says-pilot-who-flew-for-the-air-force-during-operation-desert-storm.html

Noel

My most recent flight between Germany and Taiwan in a 787 was pure hell. Nearly 16 hours in a fully packed in like sardines economy class of a  787. At least the food was edible and I got 3 small cups of water. I wanted cheap and I got it. I can imagine many business class passengers also want cheap and will try any trick in the book, opening and soon after closing new credit cards, throwaway ticketing etc. to pay as little as possible.

Ok, that doesn't relate to Boeing, and penny pinching by everyone involved is certainly nothing new. I'm just wondering if the wish for 100% safety is unrealistic. Skirting some sensitive topics, but we have to accept a certain degree of risk with diseases. We also seem to accept dangers driving on our highways, since achieving 100% safety for all cars and trucks out on the road might be seen as placing too much of a strain on the economy. Imagine it became accepted as normal that say if there are around a hundred thousand commercial flights per day, one in a million went down in a great ball of fire, roughly one 737 or 787 (or A320 or A350) every 10 days. I can't imagine it, and most definitely favor striving for 100% safety in aviation.

Maybe economics have nothing to do with these reported troubles at Boeing, just rambling about factors that might be at play after observing my own penny pinching habits.

I agree with the pilot. Their maintenance crews should be more alert. They need to understand the extent of corporate greed. Flying really stinks unless you are ready to pay the price. We recently flew to Scotland on an A380 with British Airways. We flew Premium Economy. Great flight to London. The flight to Edinburgh on an A320 was miserable. Even the seats in Premium Economy were so close you had to scrunch your legs in. Corporate greed abounds.

Bill W

Well, 100% safety is one of those things we always aim for and try to attain regardless. It's like that old USAF saying of aiming high. Unfortunately, Safety comes in many different facets and forms in the big picture puzzle. There's a lot of trust involved from the manufacturer through to maintenance and crew. We all hold the line and trust that each holder is safety focused. In that case we hope that someone down the line will catch items. This reminds me of return to service flights.

I remember the first time I picked up a jet from heavy maintenance in the USAF. We would only send highly experienced peeps and you had to have a minimum qualification of instructor. I saw how the jets were all broken down and taken a part. My job was to fly it and perform a functional check flight after the jet is put back together😶. We would stall it, over speed it, go down to battery power in flight, restart the engines inflight, emergency extend the gear, etc. Once it passed the checks, we would accept the jet and take her home. On the civilian side, it's similar or may not be down at all. You may take off, do a turn in the pattern and call it good. But I will tell you that I have never picked up a jet and accepted it after the first flight. There is always something wrong, usually minor things. Like, you put out the speed brakes and the aircraft starts to roll. Or it takes more than a degree of trim to trim it during dive tests. I haven't had any major issue, knocking on wood. But this goes to show that things get by maintenance and hopefully I catch during pre-flights and check flights.

I do remember this one time that a few of our jets had a lot of corrosion near the belly. Maintenance said it was because of flight attendants spilling water🤣. Come to find out, it was due to the way they were maintaining the over wing emergency exit windows. Their procedures and wrong tools were causing the exit/window seal to wear away and allowed rain water in when the jets were left out in the rain. The water collected in the belly causing massive corrosion. Neither maintenance or the crews were able to catch it. It was identified by Gulfstream during heavy checks. So, things will slip by but.......In this case and others, the maintainers could have caught that the wrong tools and procedures were being used.