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.
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.
You’re mostly right, but your comment also assumes independent probabilities rather than correlated probabilities of danger. Sometimes multiple crashes can trace back to the same cause: one particular manufacturing defect on a model of aircraft sold thousands of times, one bad practice on air traffic control procedure, one bad actor targeting multiple aircraft, etc.
Purely hypothetically, as an example, if it turned out that there was a terrorist group targeting aircraft via anti aircraft missiles, then that group’s success at bringing down an airliner would actually worsen the odds of passengers on other aircraft, at least until we receive external information that the threat has passed.
One bad actor causing chaos amongst the staff entrusted with keeping airlines safe….
Exactly. Some of the fears that people have are about factors that affect all flights, not just the risk of a single pilot operating a single aircraft.
Flying is still safe and has a strong safety culture built into the industry independent of government regulation, that wouldn’t change overnight even if the government regulators change. But removing a slice of Swiss cheese is still bad, and cause for concern.
Also, Boeing notwithstanding…
That used to be good advice. The best time to fly now is before planes started falling out of the sky.
Reminds me of that guy who deliberately books vacations to places that have just suffered terrorist attacks. Cheap as fuck and super safe since there are security forces everywhere. Not sure I agree with the practice, but can’t really fault the logic.
Yep, that’s pretty similar. Might be a good travel idea, but one would have to take care regarding any issue that the locals might have with foreigners after tragedies in their communities.
Everyone dies.