I recall clickbait meaning "A way of describing what's behind a link, often inaccurately, so that you click on it". The completely non-controversial article seems to me to have a very hook-y headline which is exactly what the phrase refers to, at least to me. What does clickbait mean to you? Perhaps the meaning of the phrase has changed in different groups over time.
It’s not a buried sentence. It’s a section heading in large font saying “ The 777-200 Problem Is Not Safety. It Is Economics.”
Then there’s a whole paragraph stating “The Boeing 777-200 is not an unsafe airplane. As far as I can tell, that is not the issue even after the incident over Dulles over the weekend.”
Then just in case the reader jumped to conclusions, the first sentence of the conclusion again says it’s safe.
You are explaining exactly why the headline is clickbait: The article does not support the conclusions implied by the headline.
> just in case the reader jumped to conclusions
The author is correcting a problem of his own creation. He has already misled the reader with his headline. He means for the reader to misunderstand... and click.
Like you, I took an impression from the headline that safety was at issue — that's why I clicked on the article, only to find out that it was about economics instead. I don't know if it was deliberate clickbait, but that was the effect.
United seems to like to hang onto extremely old airplanes even as the number of these disruptions mount. We can argue how statistically they're safer etc but these events are extremely unsettling and disruptive for passengers and frankly it's lucky no one's been killed yet. One of these planes dropped a wheel on a parked car at SFO last year.
It's not hard to notice there are other major airlines that generally maintain newer widebody fleets.
The B777 is probably the safest, most meticulously engineered commercial wide-body aircraft ever built.
They're also getting old, and airlines retire old aircraft.