• Zak@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Safety has improved considerably in the past couple decades in the USA.

    There’s probably no causal relationship to declining comfort though. Comfort has decreased for two reasons:

    1. Anything that gets more seats on a plane increases potential revenue. An extra row in a 737 could be on the order of $2 million a year in revenue.
    2. Any discomfort the airline can inflict that doesn’t significantly exceed its rivals encourages customers to pay for upgrades.
    • But, again, most likely due to more stringent maintenance, training, and procedural regulations thank because of any technology improvement. American’s average plane age is 11y/o; United is 14 y/o; Delta’s average plane age is 17 years old. Despite bring nearly half again older, Delta’s safety record isn’t much worse than American’s. There’s little or no correlation between fleet age and safety, and it’s more rational that any increased accident rate of older planes is due to wear and tear and general ages of the planes rather than the technology in them.