United Airlines has extended its flight cancellations due to the Boeing 737’s grounding. The cancellations are being pushed to December 19th.
This recent announcement from United Airlines may come as a surprise to some passengers. The airline has announced the cancellations well in advance, giving them some time to accommodate the affected passengers. In the meantime, Boeing is promising to have another software fix ready for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) by early October. Boeing expects that the 737 MAX will be ready for takeoff again sometime in mid-October.
The Boeing 737 MAX was grounded starting last October following two failures in the planes’ automatic safety features. The failure caused the noses of the two 737 MAX planes to dip, causing two crashes that killed hundreds and led to the worldwide 737 MAX fleet being grounded.
At the moment, several airlines are having difficulty working around the fact that it isn’t yet clear when the FAA will approve Boeing’s software updates. Airlines can’t schedule flights which would be flown with a 737 MAX until they know for certain that the plane will be back in service at the scheduled time. To make matters more difficult, pilots will also need to be trained on the new safety procedures that must be followed for the updated planes. Boeing has already said it’ll compensate airline customers for the disruptions the delays have caused. The second quarter of 2019 already saw Boeing pay a $5 billion charge over the 737 MAX’s troubles.
