The airfare aggregator giant Kayak has added new features to a filter that allows travelers to specifically avoid flights that are set to be flown on Boeing 737 Max planes, and to allow people to more granularly avoid Max 8 and Max 9 planes after the door fell off of a Boeing 737 Max 9 while in flight earlier this month.
Kayak told 404 Media that it originally rolled out its aircraft filter service in March 2019, but that after it saw a 15-fold increase in people filtering out 737 Max flights after the door flew off of a Boeing plane, it decided to make the feature more prominent and to add features that make the filter more granular and allow users to filter by specific model.
“Following the spike in usage, KAYAK moved its filter up so it’s more prominent for travelers when searching for a flight,” a KAYAK spokesperson told 404 Media. “The company also added the ability to filter specifically by the 737 Max 8 and Max 9 aircraft models especially as Max 8 aircrafts are still in flight.”
Boeing 737 Max 9 flights remain grounded, but the Boeing 737 Max 8 is still in use.
“Previously, you could filter our Max planes from your travel search on KAYAK but the Max 8 and Max 9 planes were lumped together in one search,” they added.
The prominence of the feature highlights our current dystopia, in which a person must consider price, time, route, airline, and whether or not the plane they’re flying on has a history of sudden crashes or the door falling off inflight.
