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konschubert
I’m really surprised to hear that these planes will be back in the air in December.

Has the root cause of the two crashes been identified and fixed?

chmod775
"Will be" is a bit strong here, more like may be. The European counterpart to the FAA expects it take well into next year.
darkhorn
Even if they fix it I'm not going to use any 737.
throwaway3627
Wise move. All Boeing aircraft designed, built or remanufactured in the past 30 years (since regulation has been very weak / absent) are at systematic risk of being deficient in potentially an unlimited number of areas.

Another example of a MAX-like issue is in 2010 Al Jazeera uncovered the plot to hide the facts about the substandard Ducommun critical structural parts that were used on 737 NG (-600 .. -900) and covered-up by Boeing management. The story barely made headlines even though several 737 NG fuselages have broken up on hard landings and runway overruns, killing several passengers, whereas previous fuselages have survived such stresses.

It is a shame that regulatory capture (through political corruption) has been allowed to fester and decay the output of Boeing.

dTal
Let's be real - it's terrible that the MAX is so much less safe than the current, very strict aviation safety standards - we shouldn't cut Boeing any slack for that. But should you really go out of your way to avoid flying on one on that basis? Per mile, it's still safer than driving - very roughly, 100 times safer, compared to the usual 1000 times safer.
rightbyte
Maybe the airlines should just cancel the flights and reroute to bus or train instead of flying to-be scraped airplaines.
jperry
...and boats? How are international flights going to work on a bus?
rightbyte
If there are no alternative way of transportation maybe that route should fly the proper planes while short domestic flights get canceled?

Seems unrespondible to fly old junk becouse the new junk is grounded by authorities.

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CamelCaseName
Is it possible that the planes flying domestic cannot fly international? (Small fuel reserves, not enough seats to justify the price tag, etc.)
Buraksr
Its an odd world we live in, where a 30 year old plane is considered more reliable and safe than one particular model of Boeing's "Next Generation lineup". That said there are 50+ year old planes still in service [0], so it is not too surprising that these old planes still work well enough to carry passengers to this day. It just that we would have hoped to have gained safety over all this time, instead of having one quite literal 'killer feature' inadvertently added.

0-https://www.veteranaid.org/blog/5-oldest-us-aircraft-still-i...