Even a plane with a bunch of faults is much safer than a typical journey by car.
Ground a few planes, and the extra car journeys caused by people choosing to drive due to disruption to their travel plans easily causes more deaths.
Humans are particularly bad at handling unlikely events (such as the risk of a plane crash), and in those cases, their 'gut reaction' frequently is the wrong one.
If I had the choice between a 'typical journey by car' vs a 'plane with a bunch of faults' I'd definitely prefer the typical journey by car.
A 'plane with a bunch of faults' could range from a non-issue to an imminent crash, a typical journey by car tends to do what it is supposed to do, it is the 'exceptional journeys by car' that are the problematic ones.
Air travel is safer statistically because most planes do not have 'a bunch of faults', when you start out with faulty planes the stats will rapidly turn against you.
Ground a few planes, and the extra car journeys caused by people choosing to drive due to disruption to their travel plans easily causes more deaths.
Humans are particularly bad at handling unlikely events (such as the risk of a plane crash), and in those cases, their 'gut reaction' frequently is the wrong one.