Despite Crash, Confidence in Air Safety Remains Aloft

Three-quarters of those surveyed in an ABCNEWS.com poll rate the safety record of commercial airlines as excellent or good.

Analysis By Gary Langer, ABCNEWS.com

Nov. 8 Public confidence in air safety is holding up in the face of the EgyptAir disaster. But a sizable minority expresses some anxiety: Three in 10 Americans think recent crashes do indicate a broader problem with safety in the skies.

Three-quarters of the respondents in a new ABCNEWS.com poll rate the safety record of commercial airline travel as excellent or good a bit better than it was just after the TWA Flight 800 crash in July 1996. Theres room for improvement, though: Just 26 percent give air safety the top rating, "excellent."

Two-thirds also dont think the EgyptAir and TWA crashes or the 1998 crash of a Swissair jet off Nova Scotia reflect on the overall safety of air travel. But 29 percent a large population group, given the issue think these crashes do "mean that air travel is getting less safe."

Fear of Flying

Concerns are greatest, though, among those who dont fly. Only 46 percent of non-fliers give positive ratings to air safety; that soars to 83 percent of people who have flown. And positive ratings increase with frequency of flying.

Similarly, 26 percent of fliers think the recent crashes indicate a broader problem; that rises to 40 percent among non-fliers.

Fearful fliers, naturally, are much more likely to express concerns over flight safety. But the amount of fear itself seems to be in check: Just 14 percent of Americans say theyre afraid of flying on an airplane, compared to 20 percent in a 1985 poll. Twenty-nine percent say flying bothers them slightly; most, 56 percent, say theyre not at all afraid.

Most, 58 percent, also believe that flying in a commercial airplane is safer than driving in a car, while 39 percent think its safer to drive. Far more people are killed in car crashes in this country an average of 800 a week. At the same time, of course, no single highway pileup is as devastating as a major airline crash.

Groups

Men seem much more comfortable than women with air flight. Seventy percent of men say theyre not at all afraid of flying; this falls to 43 percent of women. Twenty-one percent of women say theyre afraid to fly, compared to 6 percent of men. And twice as many men as women say commercial air flight has an "excellent" safety record, 36 percent to 17 percent.

People who are afraid of flying have a sensible solution: They dont do it much, if at all. Forty-eight percent of them have never flown in their lives.

Methodology

This ABCNEWS.com survey was conducted by telephone Nov. 3-7 among a random national sample of 1,001 adults. The results have a three-point error margin. Field work was conducted by ICR-International Communications Research of Media, Pa. 

Gary Langer is the head of ABCNEWS polling unit.