large-plane air travel is significantly safer than the alternatives, even with a substandard airline.
But do consumers really know that? They’ve had weeks of media coverage of the latest incident, and I doubt many like to live in fear of their pilott deciding to kill himself out of the blue.
The Chinese might take the obstructive stupidity of the Malaysian authorities rather well either.
The airline business isn’t so easy and even before the incident, Malaysia airlines weren’t doing so well financially. Are we looking at a collapse?
HONG KONG (AP) — A Malaysia Airlines flight from Kuala Lumpur to Seoul has made an emergency landing in Hong Kong after a generator failed.
Hong Kong’s airport says firefighters were put on standby for the arrival of the Airbus A330-300, which landed without incident just before 3 a.m. on Monday.
Malaysia Airlines says in a statement that flight MH066 was diverted to the southern Chinese city after the main generator supplying normal electrical power failed. However, the jet’s auxiliary power unit was able to continue supplying power.
The airline said the 271 passengers bound for Incheon International Airport near Seoul were put on flights with other carriers.
Searchers are continuing to look for a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 that disappeared March 8 on an overnight flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.
Wouldn’t bother me. MA have an excellent reputation and are a very nice airline to fly with.
Malaysia itself however could suffer from all of the negative publicity. Its a pleasant country but doesn’t have an tourism icons so easy to delete from a holiday plan.
All airlines have multiple incidents in a month. Granted - the presumed crash of the flight is a severe blow but forced landings are not *that *rare. The statistics presented so far don’t show Malaysia Airlines in a bad light.
It seems to me that the missing plane may cause some people to rethink the need to travel to Malaysia so in that respect they are going to lose some trade. But unless there is a pattern established of planes going missing or crashing, they aren’t going to be in any worse shape than any carrier that loses a plane.
I have flown long- and medium distances on Malaysia & they are just fine. However, I do have a serious concern about any aircraft carrying lithium batteries in freight (caused a fire, pilots used fire suppression, it worked, but the smoke killed all on board and 777 flew itself until it could not refuel itself).
Admittedly, a nation that calls in a witch doctor to bang together two coconuts to locate a modern baby of High Science does not inspire confidence. Both Indonesia and Malaysia elect idiot-leaders based on ancient religions and great abilities in corruption. Somehow they have the good fortune to find a few people who are better at technology, science and can run airlines.
This is less so with Indonesia as they have some of the most accident-prone airlines in the world. If people really worried about safety, there would be no passengers on Indon., Russian and Indian airlines.
The odds of being in a fatal aircraft mishap involving a regularly scheduled airline are right up there with a lottery win. In other words, it’s not going to happen for the overwhelming majority people in a lifetime.
Malaysia Airlines stock will drop (temporarily) and its insurance rates will go up and that’s about it.
And yet tens of millions of people play the lottery regularly.
People overestimate the chance of huge memorable events happening.
Edit: and light aircraft are far less safe then jumbos. The British aviation authority reports that large planes have an mishap rate of 2 per million flight hours, small planes have a mishap rate of 50 per million flight hours
Name an airline that does NOT accept lithium batteries as freight. You are not allowed lithium batteries in your baggage but properly packaged batteries loaded in accordance with ICAO dangerous goods regulations are fine.
If there was enough smoke to incapacitate the crew then there was enough fire to bring down the aeroplane much quicker than eight hours.
As for “two incidents in a month”, airlines have minor incidents regularly. The media will only report it if there’s a big story to tie it to.
I’m more concerned that Malaysia will cover things up, not release cargo manifests, etc. Seems like if you’re in any other country’s national carrier, that country will do its best to make sure that any lost planes are found. Malaysia on the other hand seems to have… other priorities.
Planes are generally safe, I know that. But if by some unfortunate circumstance something happens to my plane, I would like to know that the country I’m in or airline isn’t actively hindering search efforts!