American Airlines, one of the three U.S. carriers that owns Boeing’s new 737 MAX, is cutting about 5,000 more flights because of the jetliner’s grounding after overseas crashes.
The cancellations, which involve 90 flights a day through June 5, add to those at Southwest and United, which have snarled air travel and ramped up pressure on Boeing to complete a patch for anti-stall software that will satisfy the Federal Aviation Administration that the plane is safe to return to commercial use.
“By proactively canceling these flights, we are able to provide better service to our customers with availability and rebooking options,” Fort Worth, Texas-based American said in a statement. “We know these cancellations and changes may affect some of our customers, and we are working to limit the impact.”
While the cancellations are costly, particularly during the lucrative spring break travel season, the impact could easily have been worse. Deliveries of the 737 MAX, the best-selling model in Boeing’s history, only began in 2017, and just 67 of the jetliners were flown in the U.S. when the FAA sidelined them in mid-March.
United, which owned only 14 of the planes and was using them about 40 times a day, said the initial impact of the grounding on operations and costs was limited but would increase if the jetliner isn’t allowed back into service before summer vacations start. Southwest said its 34 MAX airplanes represented only a fraction of its fleet of 750 aircraft and predicted the grounding would affect only about 160 of its roughly 4,000 flights a day.
The 737 MAX was pulled from commercial use after two air disasters that killed more than 300 people, and committees in both the House and Senate have begun looking into the FAA’s original certification of the plane. Some lawmakers are also questioning why the agency didn’t ground the plane until countries from China to the U.K. had already done so.
In the first of the MAX crashes, which occurred Oct. 29 in Indonesia, a malfunctioning sensor fed incorrect data on the airliner’s ascent angle to a computer system that attempted to lower it to avoid a stall, officials said.
That prompted a struggle between new computer software — known as the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, or MCAS — and the pilot, who ultimately lost control of the aircraft. All 189 people aboard were killed.
Boeing began working on a software patch, but it hadn’t been completed by March 10, when the second crash occurred outside Ethiopia’s capital of Addis Ababa, killing all 157 occupants aboard an Ethiopian Airlines flight.
A preliminary review by the country’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau found the plane’s computer repeatedly attempted to lower the nose of the aircraft during takeoff and the crew were unable to overcome it, mirroring what happened in Indonesia. The plane crashed in a field after only six minutes in air, leaving a crater about 30 feet deep and 130 feet long, according to the report.
