Passenger Confidence In The Wake Of Air France Flight 447

Web: www.thetravelstrategist.com — E-Mail: fish@flyingwithfish.com

1/06/2009 – Passenger Confidence In The Wake Of Air France Flight 447

As many of you have probably heard on the news today, Air France Flight 447, an Airbus A330-203 (A332), disappeared last night flying to Paris (CDG) after departing Rio Di Janeiro (GIG).

Right now as Air France an Airbus work to minimize the public relations damage that is caused by any crash, especially an unexplainable lost aircraft, I have received more than half-a-dozen e-mails from worried flyers scheduled on Airbus A330 flights and two worried about boarding Air France flights.

To these worried passengers, look at the statistics, put your fears aside and board your flights. First off, the cause of the disappearance of Air France Flight 447 is currently unknown, but suspected to be caused by severely violent weather and violent turbulence. These atmospheric phenomenons are rare, extremely rare, and can occur near the Intertropical Convergence Zone , where AF 447 lost radar contact.

For those of you flying with Air France keep this in mind, between 2007 & 2008, more than 74-million passengers safely flew with Air France. These 74-million+ passengers safely flew more than 207-million revenue passenger kilometers. Statistically you’ll be just fine, so don’t worry about it.

For those of you flying on Airbus A330 aircraft, with the exception of a single training flight incident in 1994, Air France Flight 447 is the first fatal incident involving a commercial flight of an Airbus A330 since the aircraft first flew on the 2nd of November 1992.

I have flown Air France many times, on three continents, flown on Airbus A330 aircraft on four continents, and flown Air France A330 aircraft on two continents and would not hesitate to step on-board one again right now.

For those of you still worried, lets look at airline travel safety by the numbers.

On average each year there are approximately 17,999,975 commercial flights (compiled by averaging data from various aviation sources). Of those nearly 18-million flights, annually there are only an average of 169 commercial airline fatalities each year.

Let’s put the number of commercial airline fatality numbers into perspective with some other statistics:
Average number of deaths by motor vehicle accident: 41,616
Average number of deaths by Flu & Pneumonia: 28,658
Average number of deaths by falling (most fatal falls are at home): 16,274
Average number of deaths by commercial airline travel: 169.

This means each year, on average, 16,105 more people die by accidental falling than commercial airline travel.

The disappearance of Air France Flight 447 is tragic, but don’t let it stop you from getting on your flight and heading out to explore the world…be it a 20 minute flight or a 20 hour flight.

Happy Flying…and my condolences to the passengers & crew of AF447 and their families.