Who doesn’t like and welcome praise for a job well done? Exactly, nobody. So when a mass news media magazine, U.S. News and World Report, came out with its own safety ranking of eight major U.S. airlines, it would have been mighty tempting for carriers at the top of the list — the “safest” — to take a bow. To do that, I believe, would be a mistake.
Despite the fact that the author opened the piece by saying “commercial air travel in the United States today is about as safe as it gets,” accepting praise from a general media analysis based on assumptions and judgments of the author’s choosing is misguided in that it implies acceptance of the validity of those judgments, opening the door for future subjective judgments.
Certainly, the general media will continue to do this sort of thing, using whatever criteria they think appropriate, regardless of what the aviation community says about the effort.
It is easy…
