Why not refuse to reimburse travel on MAX?
It seems difficult as a consumer or voter to take action in regards to safety and engineering concerns with the MAX series of airlines. Collective action might work however, if companies' travel policies include a statement that travel on MAX series aircraft won't be reimbursed. This is a good choice anyways as employees are valuable and losing one unnecessarily is not good for the company. Although total catastrophes have been rare, the most recent door issue was insanely lucky: the two empty seats on the plane were exactly the two next to the blown out door, if they had been occupied, at least one of the passengers would likely have sustained fatal injury.
My employer already refuses to reimburse for snorkeling and diving because of increased risk of shark attack. And I can't get repaid for golfing because of the risk of getting hit by lightning. So this makes sense, although I will have to cut back on business travel because if I can't fly Boeing aircraft in the US I can't fly at all. Probably safer to get a Cybertruck and drive.
People need to wake up to the very real risks of commercial flying. 2023 was another record year for commercial aircraft fatalities.
https://simpleflying.com/2023-aviation-safety/
That'd likely do more damage to the airline or travel company. Nobody reads disclaimers, so you'd end up with a ton of angry customers who'd vow to never use your company every again. Add up the PR damage from news media reporting on this, and well... easier to just reimburse than risk it.
Are they more dangerous than driving?
Genuine question. I know that flying in general is safer than driving — the question is whether these planes flip that equation, or merely lower the margin.
This would almost exclusively negatively impact employees who end up paying out of pocket for work-related travel, not Boeing.