United Airlines has extended the cancellation of Boeing 737 MAX aircraft until at least September 3rd. This time customers may feel the pain.
Unlike on American and Southwest, United has successfully reduced the impact of the 737 MAX groundings by reassigning aircraft, even if means capacity upgrades on some routes that ordinarily would be unable to handle such a large plane.
But during the peak summer travel season, when all aircraft are accounted for, making such swaps becomes much more difficult.
Here’s part of a note United share with employees announcing the extension of the 737 MAX suspension:
Since the grounding of the Boeing MAX aircraft in March, United has gone to great lengths to minimize the impact on our customers’ travel plans. We’ve used spare aircraft and other creative solutions to help our customers, who had been scheduled to travel on one of our MAX aircraft, get where they are going. But, it’s harder to make those changes at the peak of the busy summer travel season.
We have decided to pull MAX flights out of our schedule until September 3. During this period, we’ll continue to take extraordinary steps to protect our customers’ travel plans. Moving forward, we’ll continue to monitor the regulatory process and nimbly make the necessary adjustments to our operation and our schedule to benefit our customers who are traveling this summer.
For more than 90 years, the safety of our customers and employees at United has come first, which is why we have cooperated fully with the FAA’s independent review of the MAX aircraft, and we won’t put our customers and employees on that plane until regulators make their own independent assessment that it is safe to do so.
With the latest FAA discovery of a new potential flaw in the updated 737 MAX software, it could be a lot longer than early September before we see this plane in the air again.
CONCLUSION
Keep an eye on your schedules this weekend. As United loads changes reflecting a fleet without the use of the 737 MAX, you may well see some adjustments.
image: United
Maybe like with AC their JV partners may be able to help out though I imagine in peak summer there won’t be much to do besides a few upgauges here and there reducing some frequencies etc. Not ideal for the summer period! Also by now I imagine most of the summer bookings will be in anyway. Good luck to them hope it works out!
This is the 3rd time Boeing said the 737 Max was safe when it was not.
Clearly safety is not a priority at Boeing at all.
What else is wrong with it?
1st time was when Boeing said it was safe originally with a hidden, flawed MCAS system.
2nd time was after two crashes Boeing insisted it was safe and tried to prevent it being grounded in the US when all other countries had already grounded it.
3rd time is now when Boeing told the FAA the flaws were corrected and the FAA found otherwise.
How many outs does Boeing get before it’s game over?
Just book Delta. They don’t have any 737 Max aircraft.
This is the 3rd time Boeing said the 737 Max was safe when it was not.
Clearly safety is not a priority at Boeing at all.
What else is wrong with it?
1st time was when Boeing said it was safe originally with a hidden, flawed MCAS system.
2nd time was after two crashes Boeing insisted it was safe and tried to prevent it being grounded in the US when all other countries had already grounded it.
3rd time is now when Boeing told the FAA the flaws were corrected and the FAA found otherwise.
Just book Delta. They don’t have any 737 Max aircraft.
In the end, the one destroying american jobs is not middle east airlines or canadian plane makers. Its Boeing. Workers, pilots, not to mention litigation cost. But don’t worry, american will find its way to defend their products, whether nationalism or other stupid reason like security (huawei vs android).
No way this plane flys again this year. The FAA has been totally embarrassed by this debacle. Boeing’s wounds are completely self-inflicted. As Bob Braan pointed out, three times Boeing claimed the plane was safe. The first thing Boeing did after the Ethiopian crash was to call the president and beg him not to ground the plane.
And don’t lose sight of the fact that MCAS was added as a band-air because the plane is inherently unstable. If you don’t think that’s true, then ask yourself “Why is it there?”
It’s not really the FAA’s fault. The mood in this country is all regulations suck, so with that attitude and budget cuts, of course oversight would be passed on to the manufacturer.
And of course there is political gamesmanship. The authorities is the other countries know they have Boeing’s nuts in a vise and they’re going to enjoy squeezing. And Boeing gave them all the ammunition they needed to do this. Our illustrious president has pissed off almost every other country on the planet, so they are relishing the nut squeezing and knifing in the ribs of Boeing.