Flying Cheap

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/flyingcheap/

by sailormoon • 16 years ago

21 10 16 years ago

pkulak• 16 years ago

I watched this when it was on TV, and it was really interesting, but I couldn't help but keep thinking that even if a plane fell out of the sky every month, it would still be the safest way to travel by orders of magnitude. Though, I guess the point is that improving safety should still be a goal, even if you're the safest already.

lutorm• 16 years ago

I think the question is whether improving air safety is taking money and/or attention away from reducing more serious threats. (That statement applies equally to "terrorism".)

maigret• 16 years ago

Right... Remembers me that priced TED talk by Jamie Oliver (www.ted.com/talks/jamie_oliver.html) showing how heart diseases and fat were killing much more Americans than murders or cars.

jerf2• 16 years ago

I've idly wondered a couple of times if the industry would be better off from a PR POV if a plane went down every week. Right now a plane crash with fatalities is NEWS with capital letters. This would make it ho-hum.

Then again, if you're averaging one down a week, statistically you'll probably end up with a cluster of five or six+ planes going down within a day or two and suddenly it would be news again, regardless of whether it was actually statistically significant, so shrug

olefoo• 16 years ago

Wouldn't a zero-defects approach work better from a PR and a human perspective?

Part of the reason driving seems much safer to most people is that usually they have agency and are in control of the vehicle and can make their own decisions about weather conditions and likely traffic patterns. Whereas in a plane they are giving up control to someone unknown.

scscsc• 16 years ago

Remind me again why you think it is the safest way to travel?

mrduncan• 16 years ago

Statistically, flying is far safer than driving (apologies for not having boating data). The numbers are a few years old, but a quick search dug up the following:

http://www.crashstuff.com/driving-or-flying-plane-vs-car-acc...

http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/04/18/the-miracle...

http://www.meretrix.com/~harry/flying/notes/safetyvsdriving....

nym• 16 years ago

Can someone provide a summary? At work on this Monday, and would like to know if I should watch it later when I'm home.

noodle• 16 years ago

bigger, "reputable" commercial airlines contract out many of their flights to lower quality and/or less experienced, no-name service providers in order to save some $. this fact is hidden from the customer, as the ticket, plane, boarding gate, etc. are still branded with the big company's logo.

this is a problem, because while the big company has certain quality standards set, the smaller ones do not necessarily have to live up to those same standards. and they usually don't, which is why they're so much cheaper.

Flying Cheap

Related Stories