I will never complain about about qantas again after...

[drron]

riiight... like Air France is a dangerous carrier.

Well they have had a few crashes-
Air France accidents and incidents - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Plus a couple of hijackings and being shot at by a couple of MIGs.

 

[anat0l]

riiight... like Air France is a dangerous carrier.

You said it, not me


To be fair however, the only last incident of real concern was the Toronto incident of 2005, and even then there is some doubt as to whether AF was really at fault for the incident (although of the three incidents in the 2000s, this is the one where AF had the biggest opportunity to mitigate against the incident occurring).

Even the events in the 1990s were not of huge concern, except for perhaps the hijacking in 1994.

 

[Dave Noble]

You said it, not me

not very funny

 

[medhead]

riiight... like Air France is a dangerous carrier.

My brother must refer to them as Air Chance for some other reason......

 

[nlagalle]

riiight... like Air France is a dangerous carrier.

Only three hull losses in the last 10 years.. but I agree they are still a safe airline.

 

[Blackadder]

I've never had a bad flight with AA and would say they have gone beyond the call of duty when I was stuck because of bad weather earlier this year.

Staff, good, plane was ok, on board service fine.

Well done AA.

Likewise nothing but positive experiences with AA, as others have mentioned AAngels are very helpful.
On the check in side of things equally helpful, on my last trip to the US spending some time with a friend in NYC before she flew back to SNA on a award ticket I purchased, circumstances meant she missed here booked flight, so a quick trip to the First Class counters at JFK( I was travelling J to MIA) and no problem to get her (no status) on standy by and at the top of the list for the next scheduled flight to SNA (ahead of about half a dozen).
Likewise the gate attendant at IAH after my flight was delayed with mechnical problems, no problem cancelling my connection in DFW and getting me a later flight.

 

[gumpy]

There are much better airlines than BA/QF for 1st class travel

When i was talking F i was talking their domestic F which really isn't F...

International F i can't comment for any airline.

 

[gumpy]

What I find really interesting with all this is just how subjective the answer really is.

You have your perspective yet to others here AA can do no wrong when compared to BA and QF :!:

These things have to be subjective you know, we're not talking huge sample size here or anything.

I've flown International AA J Class 3 times, BA 2, QF 7... so yeah... you could easily find yourself a good hostess that brings service levels up.

I should clarify that the F i was speaking of in my original post was domestic F not international F.

 

[Dave Noble]

I should clarify that the F i was speaking of in my original post was domestic F not international F.

The more appropriate comparison would be a QF domestic J or a BA Club Europe flight , would say

I would definitely choose AA domestic first in preference to BA Club Europe ( in fact will not even pay extra to fly on Club Europe and will take economy ) ; against QF domestic J, it compares reasonably and where meals are offered would tend to view it better than QF J

 

[markis10]

Only three hull losses in the last 10 years.. but I agree they are still a safe airline.

Thats a good use of statistics, considering they lost two in 1999.

Air France have 150 incidences recorded in the ASN database, compared to the older QF with 10, 72 by BA, 85 by AA, 30 by LH, 8 by CX & 11 by UA. For airlines that have been around before 1950, thats an interesting stat!

 

[nlagalle]

Thats a good use of statistics, considering they lost two in 1999.

Air France have 150 incidences recorded in the ASN database, compared to the older QF with 10, 72 by BA, 85 by AA, 30 by LH, 8 by CX & 11 by UA. For airlines that have been around before 1950, thats an interesting stat!

Well I only looked at post 2000, and I originally thought it was only 2 (concorde and the 330), but there was another!

 

[docjames]

Thats a good use of statistics, considering they lost two in 1999.

Air France have 150 incidences recorded in the ASN database, compared to the older QF with 10, 72 by BA, 85 by AA, 30 by LH, 8 by CX & 11 by UA. For airlines that have been around before 1950, thats an interesting stat!

Wow, I would have tipped UA as more and BA for less.

What year did the database start. One would place more weight proportionally on recent numbers (eg. does an accident in 1951 really reflect on current safety? - The flaw in that arguement is where to draw the line as to "relevance")

 

[markis10]

Wow, I would have tipped UA as more and BA for less.

What year did the database start. One would place more weight proportionally on recent numbers (eg. does an accident in 1951 really reflect on current safety? - The flaw in that arguement is where to draw the line as to "relevance")

The ASN Safety Database, updated every week, contains descriptions of over 12,200 airliner, military transport category aircraft and corporate jet aircraft safety occurrences since 1943.

Aviation Safety Network > ASN Aviation Safety Database

Your "flaw" was also my point, it does depend on how you slice and dice the info! An incident in 1951 may not have any bearing on todays safety, unless its part of a pattern that is ongoing since 1951. At least two of the UA incidents are related more to Pan Am than UA.

 

[straitman]

Air France have 150 incidences recorded in the ASN database, compared to the older QF with 10, 72 by BA, 85 by AA, 30 by LH, 8 by CX & 11 by UA. For airlines that have been around before 1950, thats an interesting stat!

riiight... like Air France is a dangerous carrier.

If you base your answer upon the presented statistics then the answer is 'Yes'

 

[anat0l]

The ASN Safety Database, updated every week, contains descriptions of over 12,200 airliner, military transport category aircraft and corporate jet aircraft safety occurrences since 1943.

Aviation Safety Network > ASN Aviation Safety Database

Your "flaw" was also my point, it does depend on how you slice and dice the info! An incident in 1951 may not have any bearing on todays safety, unless its part of a pattern that is ongoing since 1951. At least two of the UA incidents are related more to Pan Am than UA.

Slightly O/T now...

I would look at all incidents carefully. In my view:

• The more dated an incident is, the less relevant it is today. It doesn't necessarily demote the incident to nothing or a non-incident, but people just don't judge the safety of an airline based on something that might've happened in the days of Viscounts, Boeing 707s and WW2.
• Terrorist threats and hijackings need to be examined carefully - it's difficult to ascertain the degree of culpability of the airline in every case.
• Similarly, some accidents are not the fault of the airline - it could be another aircraft, or the aircraft manufacturer. In some cases, the responsibility is disputed. All that said, there are often mitigating circumstances on all parties, but in a sizable number of cases the bulk of responsibility can be established.
  A decent example of this is the Teneriffe disaster. Both PA and KL had severe losses and both would register an incident, but we know which airline was truly the unsafe one based on that incident...

 

[straitman]

A decent example of this is the Teneriffe disaster. Both PA and KL had severe losses and both would register an incident, but we know which airline was truly the unsafe one based on that incident...

anat0l,

I challenge your conclusion on that one. This incident is studied industry wide for CRM and accident investigation training and the real answer is not as simple as what you get from first impressions.

 

[anat0l]

anat0l,

I challenge your conclusion on that one. This incident is studied industry wide for CRM and accident investigation training and the real answer is not as simple as what you get from first impressions.

I concede that primary culpability is far from trivial - there were mitigating circumstances on all sides. Do you mean to challenge the ultimate decision of legal culpability that resulted from the incident?

In any case, I couldn't possibly take you up on it - I don't have the background or immediate research/knowledge to enable that debate. All I based it on was whatever net resources I could easily find (and...Wikipedia...alright now you may start shooting and I'll start running.... )

It still allows one to question the notion of mere numbers of incidents attributed to an airline as a direct measure of its relative safety, however.

 

[straitman]

I concede that primary culpability is far from trivial - there were mitigating circumstances on all sides. Do you mean to challenge the ultimate decision of legal culpability that resulted from the incident?

No challenge from me other than people tend to focus on the simple solution when it really does not have a simple answer.

It still allows one to question the notion of mere numbers of incidents attributed to an airline as a direct measure of its relative safety, however.

I agree absolutely other than the numbers can be used to indicate trends IF used correctly.

 

[markis10]

Slightly O/T now...



I would look at all incidents carefully. In my view:

• The more dated an incident is, the less relevant it is today. It doesn't necessarily demote the incident to nothing or a non-incident, but people just don't judge the safety of an airline based on something that might've happened in the days of Viscounts, Boeing 707s and WW2.
• Terrorist threats and hijackings need to be examined carefully - it's difficult to ascertain the degree of culpability of the airline in every case.
• Similarly, some accidents are not the fault of the airline - it could be another aircraft, or the aircraft manufacturer. In some cases, the responsibility is disputed. All that said, there are often mitigating circumstances on all parties, but in a sizable number of cases the bulk of responsibility can be established.
  A decent example of this is the Teneriffe disaster. Both PA and KL had severe losses and both would register an incident, but we know which airline was truly the unsafe one based on that incident...

While the older accidents are less applicable, it does allow for a pattern to be established that to a certain extent takes out lady luck from the equation. It could be argued that lady luck or another party had a part in at least one accident for all the airlines or around 10% of their accidents in total but airline policies and procedures also play a part in letting luck come into play, such as departing in known poor visibility, flying to a destination that is known to have security issues, poor CRM etc etc.

If an airline is 80 years old and has averaged 2 accidents/incidents a year for that time, while a similar airline has suffered 10 or one/two a decade, and that trend is across the life of the aircraft rather than being during times of war, then thats a good indication of its safety record IMHO. Note also the measure does not take into account fleet size or RSK's, its why I included UAL and AA in the mix.

 

[NM]

I am more concerned with how the experience of an incident has reflected in changes to procedures, equipment, training etc. Sometimes an incident can act as a wake-up call and result in safer operations/conditions when changes result.