Safety, for the passenger, is always relative and a matter of perception. I have been regular SLF since 1974, in which year there were 11 major losses including the THY Paris crash, the first 747 loss, two Pan Am 707s and a TWA bombing. To take a SWAG, with today's traffic and aircraft sizes, such a mishap rate would see a crash every week with an average of ~200 fatalities.
That's been the result of both improved engineering, better training in sims, and better understanding of flying practices (CRM), among other things.
As for perception: I believe the passenger expects the flight to be safe. I'm estimating that most people in the flying public have never lost a family member or an acquaintance in a public-transport aviation mishap. They may not be consciously aware of how much safety has improved (perhaps because of the prominence given to protection against terrorist attack), but it would be unwise at this point to underestimate the impact of the MAX accidents: two closely related accidents, with large loss of life, hitting the same aircraft type within months of its introduction.