The Year Ahead
January 21, 2025
OUT WITH the old. As it happened, 2024 closed on a sour note, with two major crashes in the span of a week, capping what was, statistically, one of the deadliest years in some time.
Maybe so, but how deadly, exactly? Compare last year to many of the years of the 1970’s and 1980’s, when multiple major crashes were the norm. Suddenly 2024 doesn’t look so bad. Fact is, year over year, we have nowhere near the number of serious accidents we used to.
Just the same, it’s tempting to view 2024 as a correction, rather than an aberration. Perhaps what was surprising wasn’t the spate of accidents, but rather how long we’d gone without such a spate. Maybe we were too lucky for too long.
There’s no telling what might happen in 2025. If nothing else, let’s hope the U.S. majors maintain their remarkable streak of disaster-free years, currently standing at 23.
In the meantime, who’s next in line for a computer crash? The “airline meltdown” has become a recurrent event — a revolving series of tech-related fiascos. Every few months, it seems, things at one of the big carriers go haywire for a few days. Last summer, Delta had its fifteen minutes of infamy. More recently it was American. Is it United’s turn? Southwest? JetBlue?
Other predictions are easier. The unrelenting tedium of TSA, for instance. No changes there. You’ve been standing in line for the past two decades, mostly for no good reason. And you’ll be standing again.
Things have gotten a little better with delays and cancellations, as airlines have reduced their dependence on regional jets and rationalized their schedules. Somewhat. But the skies remain overcrowded, and ATC remains understaffed and underfunded. So I don’t foresee much improvement.
What else? Bankrupcties? Mergers? Will Spirit Airlines hang in there, or will they disappear under Chapter 7 or a last-minute acquisition? How about a new black swan event, akin to the COVID surprise of 2020?
Who knows. I don’t really see any markers. Nothing feels likely. And maybe that’s good. Perhaps a boring 2025 is what we should hope for.
Feel free to leave your own prognostications in the comments section.
Photo courtesy of Unsplash
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10 Responses to “The Year Ahead”
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To clarify, this is the first time in 15 years that we had any US airline crash period, mainline or not.
Besides, this could’ve easily been a 757 that got hit by a helicopter under the right circumstances, unless we’re to believe a much more experienced pilot would’ve had better wits and was able to make out, during the busy time in flight, that a helicopter was nearby.
The more I hear about this, the worse it gets. The ATC guy did everything right, except for one thing; he should have told the US Air Force chopper to get the hell out of my airspace. But in the US, the military goes above everyone. This accident is 100% on the chopper pilot.
As a foreigner, when I listen to CNN and the Government officials bragging about US airspace being the safest and best in the world.
Well, that is not the case.
It sounds like all other countries dont have a clue what they are doing, but in fact, we are doing much better then the US.
Look up accidents from 1945-2022 and guess who is on the top of the list.
Not Russia.
Not France.
Not Thailand.
Not Germany.
Not Vietnam.
Not Nigeria.
Not Mexico.
Not Colombia.
Its USA.
Blame it on more traffic, more planes. Whatever. You are NOT as superior as you may think. Period.
Fix your own issues before bragging about being the best.
Looks like the Army helicopter ran into the jet on a normal runway approach. The helicopter was flying with night vision goggles. In such a congested air space that’s nuts.
Terrible news from Washington! Wont speculate as to what happened.
But as I have asked before; why dont airports have several cameras in place to record the airspace around the airport, and everything going on on the airport itself (taxi ways, runways etc). It would for sure help the investigation in cases like this, and with so many close calls on different airports I think its weird its not in place. Seems like all videos they are able to get their hands on are more or less random cameras, either nearby like traffic cameras or some security cameras on or near the airport, or witnesses that were randomly filming.
Many passengers like to record landings. Maybe they are able to retrieve some videos from passenger phones that could shed some more light on what happened.
Well Patrick, it finally happened. No boring 2025 for us.
Sigh. PSA flight AA 5342 from Wichita to DCA collided with a US military Sikorsky H-70 over the potomac. Or given the flight tracks I’ve seen, where the CRJ was where it was supposed to be on approach and WTF was the helo doing zigzagging all over the place, more accurately the helo collided with the CRJ. 60 persons on board the CRJ, 3 on the H-70. A few survivors reported so far from the CRJ. Having flashbacks to that air florida flight many years ago, but this one is different.
I predict that at least one passenger will come up with a never-seen-before massively obnoxious behavior while in the air. I mean, nail-clipping, foot-baring, seat-hogging, and projectile vomiting are so 2024.
Do you really think that 2025 will be boring?
At least one USA airline won’t make. Maybe a certain yellow-painted ultra low-cost carrier. JetBlue seems like a risk, but maybe a much lower risk than Spirit.
For years, or decades even, the airline consumer “chose” ever more de-bundled service by going for lower fares mostly over any other considerations. But the ultra LCCs pushed it so far that most people seem to avoid Spirit despite it’s base fare being significantly less than the legacy carrier fares.
Don’t forget that Southwest will begin the implementation of its assigned seats in 2025. Even if the flights don’t start until 2026, they will be selling tickets on those flights in 2025 which means purchasing the fare categories related to it, choosing seats, etc. Look forward to seeing how this plays out.