Summary
A new AP-NORC poll shows that Americans’ confidence in air travel has declined after several fatal plane crashes in 2025.
Only 64% now believe flying is safe, down from 71% last year, while the number of those who feel it is unsafe rose by 12%.
Confidence in pilots, air traffic controllers, and the federal government has also dropped. Recent crashes, including a deadly collision over Washington, D.C., have fueled public concern.
Meanwhile, Trump has begun firing hundreds of FAA employees, raising further safety worries.
Even if there were 10x the number of accidents flying would still be one of the safest ways to travel.
But I’d still avoid it because of the ergonomics and customer service.
My confidence in air travel fell completely after the former head of QA for Boeing’s plane factory said he wouldn’t get on a Boeing plane
There are not actually anymore crashes than usual. The one that killed 67 was big so there is a focus on them for a while. Same thing happened after the East Palestine train derailment. Not that deregulation (and Trump) hasn’t fucked things up overall but there is not some sudden jump in crashes.
most people aren’t aware that Air Traffic Controllers are forced to retire at 55. no old, slow reaction employees allowed.
when Reagan fired thousands of ATCs in the 80s, then hired and trained all new scabs, he inadvertently created an enormous cohort who would all be retiring at around the same time due to forced retirement.
fast forward to today,
- thousands of ATCs were aging out and being replaced with less experienced people (less of a prob now than 10ish yrs ago but still staffing is extremely lean due to Reagan)
- add to that the obsolete legacy tracking tech
- add to that cost saving (corner cutting) by aerospace corps like Boeing
- add to that major dysfunction in pilot training, screening out baddies, inexperienced pilots, and dissatisfied airline workers and unions
- add to that Trump administration purges and demoralization of federal workers
- add to that Musk getting his SpaceX cronies hands all over the system to make ‘upgrades’
data nerds can point to historical accident statistics from the past 20 years up to what, 2020? all you like. trend lines don’t often accurately predict the future, they merely describe the past.
I recommend thinking twice before placing all your loved ones on a plane over the next couple years. there’s going to be more of this.
This is great to read as I prepare for another trip my company need’s me to go in.
Added with Trump firing faa employees
Quick everyone, start talking about high speed rail!
Maybe we have the slightest shot of actually building out, y’know, cheap, fast, effective mass transit for once?
President Musk will never allow it.
Be prepared for cars in tunnels! And poorly functioning cars at snail pace, if that!
Elon is in power and has too much money shame him into building hyperloop finally
He never intended to build the Hyperloop. From the start, it was a lie to shut down a proposed project to build a west coast high speed rail line.
Yeah, and it can be defeated with elementary school level math, so anyone in government who agreed to fund it should be brought back to school (though they are probably just more corrupt than stupid).
Everyone in the industry tries to focus on how fast a hyperloop can go, and tries to keep any criticism focused on the engineering challenges (and to be clear, there are many, many engineering and safety challenges).
It should never be discussed as “LA to the Bay in X minutes”, it needs to be discussed in terms of passengers per hour.
Given that these vehicles travel very fast, passengers will need to remain seated while the vehicle is in motion. Let’s pretend that the occupants of each vehicle are capable of leaving the vehicle with their luggage in under the FAA’s targeted evacuation time of 90 seconds (even though luggage makes it take like 10x that). That’s 40 loads per hour, and let’s be generous and say they fit 40 people, that’s 1600 people per hour.
That puts it on par with a lane of car traffic. Maybe you can squeeze some more people in there, or really crack a whip to get people out quick, but you won’t be able to get to a fraction of the passengers per hour of high speed rail at ~20,000.
When you actually do calculations with all the other factors, you get ~350 passengers per hour.
Just getting us peasants prepared to not have air travel available to us.
This is funny to me because the amount of commerce in the U.S. that is dependent on reliable air travel for average Americans is massive. If people stop flying the economy is going to be what ends up in freefall.
I’m not flying until this gets sorted out. The fact that we elected a fucking Russian saboteur twice is just incomprehensible. NPVIC might save us in the nick of time, but I doubt it.
I just wish traveling were a more pleasant experience in general. I gotta take an extra day off after coming back home because modes of travel in USA are so exhausting.
I’m not flying anywhere while the orange turd is in office. Fuck it, less money for the economy I guess. U wanna fire air traffic controllers while there is an active shortage? Planes crashing left and right ever since. Hard pass.
So weird that it’s only fallen 7% considering before January 2025 we hadn’t had a fatal plane crash in almost 16 years, and now we’ve had multiple in a month.
I really don’t think we hold any industry to the superhuman standards we hold aviation to.
The only other industry that individuals entrust their lives to in large numbers that I can think of is the medical industry, and that kills around 100k people a year, yet people don’t quit seeking treatment en masse (problems with US medical system access and affordability aside).
Pilots are tested at least yearly with simulators dealing with emergencies of all sorts, from fires to engine failures, education and reviews of aircraft systems and aviation regulations, along with medical examinations and random drug testing to continually check fitness for flight. Cabin crew also see yearly testing dealing with emergencies, medical or things like fires in the cabin, evacuations, along with training on how to deal with passengers who may be drunk or a threat in some way.
The best time to fly is after incidents. Everyone is on high alert, training departments and unions remind crews to take extra care in their duties, all crews are aware of extra scrutiny.
The best time to fly is after incidents.
That used to be good advice. The best time to fly now is before planes started falling out of the sky.
Everyone dies.
https://www.ntsb.gov/safety/data/Pages/monthly-dashboard.aspx
Media is once again the enemy. Crashes happen. They are just getting more clicks right now so they are getting reported more.
The issue with your stats is it includes non commercial flights, but most people will only hear/care about commercial airline crashes, and 2025 has had a rough start - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatal_accidents_and_incidents_involving_commercial_aircraft_in_the_United_States
Does this mean airlines are going to drop prices to drive tickets sales? Because I’m due for a vacation…
They should have the crash chance on the departures/arrivals screen… Ohio… 7:56am on time 67%. On boarding, Sanf Francisco 4:25pm delayed 75%.
Flying is going to become exponentially more dangerous in the coming years.
Everything is
Glad I don’t have a job that requires a lot of travel anymore. There ain’t no way.
