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600 Alaska and United flights cancelled after Boeing 737 grounding, ‘cancellations will continue through the week’
Hundreds of Alaska Airlines and United Airlines flights have been cancelled after grounding of 170 Boeing 737 Max 9s aircraft.
United States' decision to ground Boeing 737 MAX 9 aircraft has left many air travellers in a chaos. Hundreds of Alaska Airlines and United Airlines flights scheduled over the weekend were cancelled after a a panel blew off the fuselage of a flight from Portland, Oregon.
600 Alaska Airlines and United Airlines flights cancelled
Alaska and United are the two main US airlines that operate the Boeing 737 MAX 9. Both the airlines combined were forced to cancel about 600 flights throughout the weekend to allow their MAX 9 aircraft to be inspected. In a statement Alaska Airline confirmed cancelling 170 flights on Sunday and 60 cancellations for Monday, with more expected.
“While we await the airworthiness directive (AD) inspection criteria from the FAA and Boeing, our maintenance teams are prepared and ready to perform the required inspections of the mid exit door plugs on our 737-9 MAX fleet,” Alaska Airlines said in a statement.
Confirming that aircraft grounding has significantly impacted operations Alaska Airlines said, “We have cancelled 170 Sunday flights and 60 cancellations for Monday, with more expected. Cancellations will continue through the first half of the week, and we encourage guests with travel plans to continue to check their email and alaskaair.com for updates.”
As of 9:15 p.m. Saturday, 118 United flights, which is 4% of their daily total, had been canceled. However, the airline was also facing some disruptions due to weather.
Icelandair confirms, its flights not affected
Icelandair has confirmed that it is not affected by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration's temporary grounding of some Boeing 737 MAX 9 planes.
"It has been confirmed that the issue is related to equipment that is not a part of Icelandair's Boeing 737 MAX 9 configuration," a spokesperson of the airline, which operates four such aircraft, told Reuters.
170 Boeing 737 Max 9s grounded
Nearly 170 Boeing 737 Max 9s have been grounded at the direction of the Federal Aviation Administration pending investigation, and that impact is already being felt by people across America.
What happened on Alaska flight 1282 to Portland
On Friday, the incident occurred on an Alaska flight 1282, a Boeing 737-9 MAX that had been certified by the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) in November 2023. Passengers on board the plane heard a loud bang and saw a hole in the wall of the plane, where a window had blown out at an altitude of 16,000 feet. A child sitting near the window was reportedly pulled by the suction, thankfully saved, and his shirt was torn off. Some passengers also lost their phones, which were sucked out of the plane. A seat next to the window was also blown out due to decompression.
No serious injuries were reported in the incident and the aircraft safely returned to Portland after the blow out occurred.
The airlines and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) moved to ground the Boeing 737 MAX 9 airliners that have the plug door to allow for inspections of other aircraft with that configuration. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is also investigating the incident.
