We always preferred flying Qantas - because of their excellent past reputation. However now with all the recent
spate of problems that their planes have been having - how safe
are their planes - and where and how are they maintained? It seems
as if short-cuts are being taken and safety is in jeopardy for the benefit of bigger proftis.

When a big jet rolls of the bitumen at a 100 knots the undercarriage & that section of the fuselage cop some pretty hefty stress. That is a natural place for the fuselage to break.
When a car hits a power pole then the grill gets shoved into the engine block. When a ship comes down onto a single point of impact then the keelson i.e. the backbone snap. It doesn't appear too unusual for three 737's to break in the same place in identical accidents.
It is of course alarming about the quoted manufacturing process but one shouldn't forget that all the other 737's with the same inferior parts are still ok at this stage. Maybe because they haven't been slammed onto the runway yet.

Dear Individual,

If there is evidence that faulty parts have been used and stress- cracks and corrosion have been found in those parts that exceed normal wear and tear of such parts it is inevitable that with time and
the stress that planes encounter in flight, eg. falling hundreds of metres in an air-pocket, destruction will eventually occur in mid-flight. Unlike a train, a bus, or a car, that has the safety of being on solid ground, an aeroplane doesn't have that security and it is best if evidence of faulty construction is published to avoid such
aeroplanes in the interests of one's own safety.

We cannot expect Big Business who've invested in a product to take a loss in profits in the interest of the flying public unless they're compensated in some way or are pressured by the abstaining traveller and then they will sell this fleet to an unsuspecting 3th World country.

As an engineer and Pilot..
chris_ho,
That reminds of a 747 jockey I spoke with a few months ago. He actually quit his job from major & quite glamourised airline because in his words "I got scared of flying because of their appalling maintenance".
I fear that the baby boomers are the last of the pragmatic generations & all we get from now on are Uni qualified technicians. What a lot of people don't realise is that no matter how much education a technician has he still needs to be exposed to the culture of the profession. Any profession has a culture but the more we focus on Uni qualification the more culture is lost & with that pragmatism is lost also. It don't look all that good for these industries.

Dear Individual,

I totally agree. Overwhelming importance is attached to educational qualifications of various kinds. In the past couple of decades the proportion of the population with bachelor's and master's degrees, and even doctorates has increased at an astonishing pace. Why has this happened? Probably because on the whole a higher credential means higher earnings because of the value the job market places on it.

Yet numerous studies have shown that there is little or no relationship between educational achievement and job performance or
productivity. Good grades in a graduate school of medicine or education are poor predictors of whether someone will become a good doctor or teacher. The fact is that the skills required to achieve a grade A or higher in a university course on anatomy or educational philosophy are not the same as the skills needed to deal with a medical emergency or an unruly high school class. Most people pick up
the necessary skills on the job, not in the classroom.

However we can only hope and trust that the education and training of
pilots for their job includes both the educational aspects as well as the "hands-on" approach.