Has trust in US air travel fallen since the DC crash? Here’s what a new poll found
Americans’ confidence in air travel safety has fallen slightly from last year, following a handful of fatal crashes, according to new polling.
In the latest AP-NORC poll, 64% of respondents said air travel is somewhat or very safe, compared to 71% who said the same in January 2024, marking a 7-point dip. And 20% said plane travel is somewhat or very unsafe, which is up from 12% last year.
The poll — conducted between Feb. 6 and 10 — comes after a passenger jet and Army helicopter collided near Washington, D.C., on Jan. 29, killing 67 people, making it the country’s deadliest aviation disaster in 24 years. It also comes after a Learjet 55 crashed near Philadelphia on Jan. 31, killing seven people, and after a Cessna Caravan went down in Alaska on Feb. 9, killing 10.
Opinions on the safety of air travel, however, varied significantly based on age, education and gender.
The vast majority of college graduates, 83%, said planes are very or somewhat safe, while 54% of non-college graduates said the same. Similarly, 71% of those 45 and older rated airplanes as very or somewhat safe, compared to 56% of 18-44-year-olds. And 71% of men rated air travel as safe, while 58% of women said the same.
The poll — which sampled 1,112 U.S. adults and has a margin of error of 4.1 percentage points — also asked respondents how much confidence they had in certain professions and groups to maintain air safety.
Pilots were the most trusted, with 84% saying they had a great or moderate amount of confidence in them to uphold air safety. Air traffic controllers and commercial airlines came second and third, with 77% and 75% saying they had great or moderate confidence.
Federal government agencies, in contrast, were the least trusted, with 55% of respondents expressing a lot or some confidence in them.
Overall, respondents said they believe traveling by plane is about as safe as walking or taking a car, with about two-thirds saying all three options are very or somewhat safe. Subway, metro and light rail systems were by far the least trusted travel option, with 53% saying they are very or somewhat safe.
The poll also comes the same day as a similar YouGov survey, which asked 3,881 U.S. adults how they feel about flying.
A plurality, 43%, said they’re not at all afraid, while 34% said it bothers them slightly and 17% said they are afraid of it.
When YouGov posed these same questions Jan. 30 — before the Philadelphia and Alaska crashes — 48% of respondents said they weren’t at all afraid and 15% said they were afraid.
Data on air travel safety
Despite these fears, deaths resulting from air travel represent just a tiny fraction of overall transportation-related deaths in the U.S., according to government data.
About 95% of all transportation-related fatalities and over 99% of transportation-related injuries occur on America’s highways, according to a 2024 report from the Department of Transportation.
In 2022, for example, there were 42,514 roadway fatalities, composing 95.4% of total transportation deaths. In comparison, there were 358 plane fatalities, representing less than 1% of overall transportation deaths.
Further, commercial airline safety worldwide has improved in recent years, according to a 2024 MIT study.
“The risk of a fatality from commercial air travel was 1 per every 13.7 million passenger boardings globally in the 2018-2022 period — a significant improvement from 1 per 7.9 million boardings in 2008-2017 and a far cry from the 1 per every 350,000 boardings that occurred in 1968-1977,” according to the study.
This story was originally published February 19, 2025 at 10:02 AM with the headline "Has trust in US air travel fallen since the DC crash? Here’s what a new poll found."