A mob of grounded Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft are shown parked at Victorville Airport in Victorville, California, U.S., Walk 26, 2019.
Mike Blake | Reuters
Southwest Airlines on Thursday joined its rival American in removing the still-grounded Boeing 737 Max from its programme through the start of September, the latest sign that the disruptions from the controversial aircraft’s grounding are hitting airlines harder than anticipated.
The low-cost carrier is scrubbing about 100 flights a day from its schedule because of the change, it said. Southwest is the best U.S. operator of the Max, with 34 of the planes in its fleet of about 750 Boeing 737 jets.
Aviation authorities found the jets in mid-March after two fatal crashes within five months of one another.
The Federal Aviation Administration and its foreign counterparts have not said when the planes might return to service, a headache for carriers left without the fuel-efficient glides during the peak summer season.
Southwest in April had previously removed the jets from its schedule through Aug. 5.
“With the timing of the MAX’s return-to-service even uncertain, we are again revising our plans to remove the MAX from our schedule through Sept. 2,” the Dallas-based airline chance in a statement.
American Airlines extended its cancellations due to the Boeing 737 grounding through Sept. 3, after time past targeting Aug. 19.
American’s CEO Doug Parker on told investors on Wednesday that it removed the planes from the schedule because runs and flight attendants were about to set up their schedules for that time period and “we still don’t have certainty as to when the aircraft hand down be back to service.”
Boeing last month said it completed a software fix for a stall-prevention system aboard the planes, but aviation officials are yet to phonogram off on those changes. Investigators have implicated that system, known as MCAS, in the two crashes, which together administer the coup de grѓced 346 people.
Boeing is scrambling to restore confidence in the 737 Max from regulators, customers and the flying public. Measurements have shown some passengers would avoid flying on the Boeing best-seller, even after aviation aegis officials allow it to return to service.
Parker said the carrier’s management team thinks it’s “highly likely” that the uninterrupted will be flying by Sept. 3. American Airlines executives and pilots would fly on the planes before paying characters, once the aircraft are cleared to fly, but before the carrier resumes selling seats on them, he added.
“Because we haven’t been skilled to sell those seats yet, we can use that time for things such as myself and other members of management and pilots to go fly the aircraft,” thought Parker. “Those types of things, I think, will help.”