Online travel agency (OTA) Kayak has enhanced its plane selection feature amid increased demand from travellers looking to filter out Boeing 737 MAX planes.
The door on an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 9 aircraft blew off 20-minutes into a flight earlier in the month, spurring the global grounding of the aircraft and an investigation by the US National Transportation Safety Board.
Kayak first introduced the filtering feature in March 2019, but the company saw very little use of it compared with other features such as airport selection or choosing the number of stops.
The OTA said it saw a 15-times increase in its bookers using the filter, prompting it to rework the setting to make it more prominent on the search page and allow travellers to distinguish between MAX 8s and MAX 9s.
“Whether you’re searching by cabin class, flight quality or aircraft type, Kayak’s filters aim to provide travellers with all the information they need to make smart decisions and travel with confidence,” a company spokesperson said.
The Guardian reported that the surge of this feature shows the unusual extent to which travellers are avoiding the 737 MAX aircraft. Such a feature would typically be used by quite discerning travellers with a keen interest in aviation, rather than everyday travellers.
United Airlines’ CEO has cast doubt on whether he is confident in the airlines’ upcoming MAX 10 order.
“They (Boeing) need to take action,” Kirby told a CNBC reporter in a recent video interview.
“I have a lot of confidence in the people at Boeing.
“There’s great mechanics, great engineers, great storied history.
“But they’ve been having these consistent manufacturing challenges and they need to take action.”
Read more on that here.
