Good News for Travel Lovers!

A new study has found that commercial air travel has become safer than ever, with the risk of death being cut in half every decade. Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) concluded that the global death rate dropped to one in 13.7 million passengers during the period from 2018 to 2022, a significant improvement compared to one in 7.9 million passengers from 2008 to 2017. These numbers are a far cry from the early days of commercial air travel, when there was one death for every 350,000 flights between 1968 and 1977. MIT professor Arnold Barnett, who co-authored the study, stated, "Aviation safety continues to improve." Between 1978 and 1987, the risk of death was one in 750,000 passengers, while from 1988 to 1997, it was one in 1.3 million, and from 1998 to 2007, it became one in 2.7 million. The last major disaster in commercial aviation in the United States occurred in 2009 when Colgan Air Flight 3407 crashed, resulting in the deaths of 50 people. However, Professor Barnett warned that ongoing progress is not guaranteed. Recent runway collisions in U.S. airports have made headlines this year, as federal investigators pressured Boeing over the cause of a door plug disconnecting mid-flight on an Alaska Airlines 737 Max 9 in January.