How to pick your flights

There have been a lot of plane accidents recently. A lot! Malaysia Airlines, Air Algerie, TransAsia Airways, and - you guessed it - Malaysia Airlines again. While this is tragic, I am not surprised by at least a few of the recent crashes and accidents. Pretty much all of the airlines that crashed this year I would not have flown. Why, you may ask. Malaysia Airlines was recently ranked one of the best airlines, according to, well, some ranking. I am not a big fan of most airline rankings. What they rank is mostly service, not safety. An airline can have the best service in the world, if they are not safe, I would never fly them. And neither should you.

A few friends have asked me recently how I pick my flights. In this post, I'd like to offer a few suggestions and personal guidelines. That doesn't mean that the flights I pick are absolutely safe. Flying is a very unnatural thing for human beings. It means we have to rely on the abilities and judgements of the pilots. We have to trust the people who maintain the planes. All these people are human beings and human beings make mistakes. So flying will never be 100 percent safe. But there are a few things you can do to be just a little bit safer in the air.

Here is my personal checklist for picking a flight:

1. Never fly with an airline that is based in a country which is not known for having an eye for detail. Ask yourself this question: Do people in this country do a good job at avoiding problems or does the culture prefer to deal with problems when they occur? People in most Western countries generally try to avoid problems. That's why we have our cars checked regularly. That's why we go to the doctor once a year for a check-up. However, there are cultures on this planet that usually deal with problems as they occur. They don't necessarily try to avoid them or prepare for them. Most of these countries are in Africa and Southeast Asia. When you're in the air, you don't want your pilots to deal with issues as they occur. You want them to fly a plane that is well maintained and won't force them to deal with problems in the air. Examples of these countries are Zimbabwe, Algeria, Kenya, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Thailand, and Malaysia.
2. Try to avoid flying airlines from countries, where it is not common for a "lowly worker" to express his opinion to his superior. If you're the co-pilot and your "superior" pilot makes a mistake, you need to be able to confront the pilot. That's the whole reason why there are still two people in the cockpit - redundancy and checks. An Asiana 777 crash-landed in San Francisco last year because a co-pilot didn't dare point out an error to a pilot. So avoid airlines from most far-eastern countries like Japan, South Korea, China, and Taiwan.
3. This is a quick and obvious rule - don't fly with an airline that has been reprimanded repeatedly by authorities because of insufficient or improper maintenance. Examples of these airlines are Southwest Airlines, Onur Air, and Iran Air.
4. When you choose a flight, also check what plane you will be flying. Try to avoid planes that are decades old and will be disposed of by the airline soon. The airlines are generally not interested in investing a lot of money in these older planes. Try to avoid planes that have crashed a lot or have been involved in many accidents (there's obviously a reason for that!). Planes to avoid are all MDs, everything that starts with "DC," pretty much all Russian planes, and I personally try to avoid propeller planes. Also avoid the 707, 727, and the 737 versions 100 to 600. If your plane is not on the following list, you shouldn't fly it: Airbus A318, A319, A320, A321, A330, A340, A380, Boeing 737 (versions 700 - 900), 747 (versions 400 and 8), 757-300 (some 200 are okay too), 767-400 (some 200 and 300 are okay too), all 777s, all 787s, Embraer 160 and up, Canadair RegionalJet 700 and up. Try to avoid flying on a plane that just entered the market. Give it a year before flying on it (e.g., Boeing 787, Airbus A350).
5. Last but not least, generally try to avoid regional airlines that fly propeller planes, Embraer 120-series planes, or small Canadair RegionalJets. The pilots sometimes make $30,000 a year and are often those who have been rejected by the bigger airlines (probably for a reason).

I've been following this list as best as I can for years. It doesn't always work - for example, I sometimes have to fly regional airlines because no other airline is flying to my destination. Most of the time, this checklist is a very good guide though. I would not have been on any of the planes that crashed recently just because of this list. Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.