Measuring public sentiment toward Boeing’s 737 Max

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Over nearly the last five years, The Air Current has been regularly measuring public sentiment toward Boeing’s 737 Max. Your correspondent has used his Twitter feed to engage users on a dozen separate occasions to ask a yes or no question: “Simple, but important, question…do you feel comfortable flying on the airplane?” We went ahead and aggregated the data and charted the movement in the results, which have swung wildly depending on events. The chart is available for TAC subscribers. 

Related: Boeing withdraws exemption request for 737 Max 7 inlet de-icing system

The yes or no nature of the question is not meant to collect data on whether a person will deliberately avoid or embrace the 737 Max when booking a ticket — that is an action that is only validated in actual consumer behavior and that claim is often reversed if an itinerary carries a lower price or greater convenience. Rather, the question serves as a measure of sentiment around the overall feelings of trust and confidence in the aircraft, and by extension, Boeing.

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Jon Ostrower
Jon Ostrower is Editor-in-chief of The Air Current, where he leads coverage of the global aerospace and aviation industries. Prior to launching TAC in June 2018, Mr. Ostrower served as Aviation Editor for CNN Worldwide, guiding the network’s global coverage of the business and operations of aviation. Mr. Ostrower joined CNN in 2016 following four and a half years at the Wall Street Journal. Based first in Chicago and then in Washington, D.C., he covered Boeing, aviation safety, and the business of global aerospace. Before that, Mr. Ostrower was editor of FlightBlogger for Flightglobal and Flight International Magazine covering the development of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner and other new aircraft programs from 2007 to 2012. He is also an instructor at the University of Southern California in the Viterbi School of Engineering's Aviation Safety and Security program. Mr. Ostrower, a Boston native, graduated from The George Washington University’s School of Media and Public Affairs with a bachelor’s degree in Political Communication. He is based in Seattle.
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