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.
most people aren’t aware that Air Traffic Controllers are forced to retire at 55. no old, slow reaction employees allowed.
when Reagan fired thousands of ATCs in the 80s, then hired and trained all new scabs, he inadvertently created an enormous cohort who would all be retiring at around the same time due to forced retirement.
fast forward to today,
- thousands of ATCs were aging out and being replaced with less experienced people (less of a prob now than 10ish yrs ago but still staffing is extremely lean due to Reagan)
- add to that the obsolete legacy tracking tech
- add to that cost saving (corner cutting) by aerospace corps like Boeing
- add to that major dysfunction in pilot training, screening out baddies, inexperienced pilots, and dissatisfied airline workers and unions
- add to that Trump administration purges and demoralization of federal workers
- add to that Musk getting his SpaceX cronies hands all over the system to make ‘upgrades’
data nerds can point to historical accident statistics from the past 20 years up to what, 2020? all you like. trend lines don’t often accurately predict the future, they merely describe the past.
I recommend thinking twice before placing all your loved ones on a plane over the next couple years. there’s going to be more of this.
My brother works ATC at one of the busiest airports in the country. While forced retirement is at 55, an informal poll of his coworkers that he and his buddies did this week revealed that nearly all of them are planning to take early retirement at 50.
They mapped it out and 80% of the facility will be retiring by 2030. To account for this, his facility alone will need to hire nearly 100 controllers. I asked him how many controllers they’ve hired recently. He said 2 since 2022.
We’re fucked.
Thanks Regan. And Trump. It’s gonna be a painful number of years/decade(s) for parts of the US.
This is great to read as I prepare for another trip my company need’s me to go in.
Even if there were 10x the number of accidents flying would still be one of the safest ways to travel.
But I’d still avoid it because of the ergonomics and customer service.
Thank you! I tried to make the same point in the comments of another recent article. This isn’t a reason to avoid air travel (yet).
However, it is a reason to criticize the Trump administration, and they deserve blame for the excess deaths under their watch. We should be hammering home the point that cutting regulation and oversight will nilly comes with life and death consequences. If it isn’t lack of FAA funding that kills you, it could be cuts to NIH, leaving WHO, turning a blind eye to corruption (which compromises quality - ask Russia), etc.
The problem is that even if it’s still safe now, these changes cannot help, and it won’t be apparent until planes start crashing.
The industry also runs on perception of safety more than the reality. If it’s perceived unsafe, then the industry could collapse quickly.
Oh, heres the thing. Even if you WERE to convince Trump that his own direct decisions is what led to the deaths of hundreds of people? He would just shrug and not care.
Which you wouldn’t be able to do because narcissists don’t have the ability to accept that they’re at fault for something.
Airplanes aren’t as safe as trains!
And the externalities from air travel are fucking horrendous.
Totally! And trains are so much more comfortable and I don’t have to let them take my nudes before I get on.
As much as I actually like driving if I’m going to a city with good transit I vastly prefer the train. Plus the stations are usually right downtown.
The downtown stations are so very nice. I love rolling right into the core and being a few minutes from everything.
Having to train in from the airport isn’t bad, but after a long trip adding another hour to get from the airport to downtown is annoying. Of course, many US cities don’t have a train from the airport to downtown, so that only applies in developed locations.
One of the upcoming wacky infrastructure choices is the high speed rail in Las Vegas to LA. On the Vegas end the train station is out of town like it’s an airport. So you train from LA to Vegas and then… bus in? Join a massive line of taxis/ubers? It’s so very clumsy. Why the casino operators didn’t find a way for the rail station to be in the center of the strip so people fall of the train and into their casinos is still beyond my ken.
Airplanes aren’t as safe as trains!
In the US, air travel is safer by an order of magnitude. According to the National Safety Council, scheduled airlines have a passenger fatality rate per 100,000,000 miles of 0.001 while rail has a fatality rate of 0.025. Hell, busses are safer with a fatality rate of 0.0066.
I’m sure rail safety is probably better in Europe and Japan since they have better rail infrastructure and more passengers.
A /r/dataisbeautiful post from several years ago also shows a similar story.
I don’t disbelieve you but you’re cherry picking one of the worst examples (possibly exceeded by Canada because of Lac-Mégantic) hell, the disaster that just happened in East Palestine, OH is an excellent study in just how awful train safety in the US is.
I averaged data from 2016 to 2022. What am I cherry picking?
I more meant that the safety of trains in the US shouldn’t be used as an example for overall train safety. Other countries have much more stringent laws.
Ditto, with Canada, there are serious issues with how train safety is conducted since the majority of train traffic is freight.
But the US doesn’t have other rail systems, so an apt comparison is US planes to US trains.
My original claim was that trains are safer than airplanes - I don’t know why we’re focusing on the US.
There were no passenger deaths for the derailment in East Palestine.
The East Palestine derailment investigation revealed a lot of flaws in safety checks and how over worked conductors were - I mentioned that incident less as a cause of danger and more due to how awful US safety laws on trains are.
I always forget what makes it the safest mode of travel.
If it’s the safest per KM, then it doesn’t matter when it’s the only way to travel.
If it’s the safest per trip, again, there often isn’t an alternative.
Is it still the safest mode of travel per time spent travelling? Because I’d imagine trains generally surpass that. And hopefully walking too in most places…
There are not actually anymore crashes than usual. The one that killed 67 was big so there is a focus on them for a while. Same thing happened after the East Palestine train derailment. Not that deregulation (and Trump) hasn’t fucked things up overall but there is not some sudden jump in crashes.
I’d say this is at least more than 50% BS as the “number of incidents” you’re referring to are mostly comprised of extremely minor things that have to be reported by law. Your train derailment example would include things like a rail car popping off the tracks inside a train yard while getting pushed around and loaded which is fairly inconsequential and shouldn’t be compared to or lumped in with something like a major derailment where toxic chemicals are dumped all over a community and then lit on fire same with plane crashes and midair collisions like we’ve been seeing.
Quick everyone, start talking about high speed rail!
Maybe we have the slightest shot of actually building out, y’know, cheap, fast, effective mass transit for once?
High speed rail is amazing! Let’s do it
Elon is in power and has too much money shame him into building hyperloop finally
They should have the crash chance on the departures/arrivals screen… Ohio… 7:56am on time 67%. On boarding, Sanf Francisco 4:25pm delayed 75%.
Does this mean airlines are going to drop prices to drive tickets sales? Because I’m due for a vacation…
No, they’re going to demand government handouts, then spend it on stock buybacks and executive bonuses. Then demand more government money.
https://www.ntsb.gov/safety/data/Pages/monthly-dashboard.aspx
Media is once again the enemy. Crashes happen. They are just getting more clicks right now so they are getting reported more.
Yep! I genuinely believe this is an effort to 1) keep Americans too scared to leave and 2) keep foreigners too scared of coming in
Idk about all that. I feel like the media latches onto things that are getting clicks which makes the public more concerned something is happening more which means more people click on it.
It’s a disgusting feedback loop that ends up just making people feel shitty.
I choose D) all of the above
They lack bowel control and object permanence
If only DEI was abolished, then these planes should never have crashed
/S
I am a aircraft mechanic and I can tell you most of us take our jobs very seriously. Those that dont, don’t get put on the bigger jobs. We take our job very seriously. Air travel is safe. I am extremely careful with my job. I always think about safety and how what I’m doing effects folks.
It’s not that you don’t take your job seriously, it’s that the same amount of work still needs to be done with less people and less oversight. People get tired. People make mistakes when they’re tired and overworked.
Flying is going to become exponentially more dangerous in the coming years.
Flying in the US.
Everything is
I just wish traveling were a more pleasant experience in general. I gotta take an extra day off after coming back home because modes of travel in USA are so exhausting.
Glad I don’t have a job that requires a lot of travel anymore. There ain’t no way.
An aside from the main point here, but I haven’t read much about the Toronto Pearson crash. Does it have anything to do with US air control or regulations (like plane maintenance) or is it just being lumped it?
From what I’ve been able to tell the Pearson crash was a fucking fluke. Actual details tend to be released slowly though so one of the theories (incorrect de-icing before take off) will take a long time to prove or disprove.
Of course not.
I believe it’s due to bad weather and strong winds.
It seems to be just lumped in. The NTSB is only supporting Canada’s investigation into the accident, not leading it.
