docav8tor

The Never-Ending Story! Thanks, Gary!


Southwest Airlines delays 737 Max return by another 2 months

Evan Hoopfer4 hours agoSouthwest Airlines announced it was again extending the return timeline of the 737 Max.

Southwest
Southwest Airlines again pushed back the projected return of the 737 Max to its network in what it hopes will be the final such delay.

In a widely expected move, Southwest Airlines Co. (NYSE: LUV) announced Thursday it projects the 737 Max to return to its schedule Aug. 11. Previously, the Dallas-based airline had the plane off its schedule until June 7.

That timeline was thrown into flux when Boeing Co. (NYSE: BA) said in January it didn't expect the beleaguered 737 Max to be recertified until "mid-2020."

Once the plane is eventually recertified, airlines, like Southwest, will need to conduct several weeks of preparation to get the plane back in the sky. That will likely include pilots spending time in a flight simulator, a measure Boeing changed its mind about after previously saying it didn't think that step was necessary.

This latest revision by Southwest means it's cancelling approximately 371 flights a day from its schedule out of 4,000 daily flights, and it'll be without the plane for almost all of the lucrative summer travel period.

The 737 Max is seriously hampering growth plans at Southwest. The carrier planned to grow to never-before seen levels in Atlanta, Denver and Baltimore over the summer.

The carrier had 34 737 Max planes in its fleet at the time of the March 2019 grounding and was supposed to have 75 Max planes in its fleet at the end of 2019. Additionally, it was supposed to take delivery of another 38 planes this year.

Southwest and Boeing reached a settlement in December for the financial damages the carrier incurred because of the 737 Max saga. The two companies will negotiate a settlement for 2020 damages at a later date.

The 737 Max has been grounded since March 2019 after it crashed for the second time in a five-month period. Between the two crashes, 346 people died.

American Airlines and United Airlines also operate the 737 Max, while Delta Air Lines does not.

ROFF

I think there’s many more ahead of him to be “thanking”

Texasbound

https://www.bangkokpost.com/business...rassing-emails

So glad you hired such a fine man!

WHACKMASTER

I hope to hell that this jars them into the realization that we need to diversify our fleet. We’re gonna lose a pile of earnings by not having the MAX in our fleet this summer (both the company and us line swine

David Puddy

An A220 order is long overdue. SWA should offer Airbus the carrot of being the launch A220-500 operator (maybe with some A220-300s to start). Better to order it while the order backlog is still manageable.... Either that or acquire JB or Breeze to add new aircraft types.

Grumpyaviator

if they do place an order or buy an AB carrier, it won’t be until the Maxes are online. They don’t want to risk Boeing’s full support in the middle of the debacle.

we need the 220, without a doubt. Gary even said it’s likely the best airplane in the 7max category for what we do, and we want the best airplane for the category.

WHACKMASTER

No doubt they should be smart enough to not disclose an order for Airbuses until they’ve leverage Boeing to the maximum and the MAX is back in service.

The A220. Damn, what a fine machine. Would LOVE to fly it.

73567

I guess I don’t get it. How does acquiring an Airbus carrier(JetBlue, Spirit, Frontier, Allegiant, etc.) cause SW to grow? Wouldn’t SW have all the flights from that acquired carrier to cover? So this makes a bigger Southwest, but unless you start cutting the Airbus carrier flights to cover SW flights what does that gain? This doesn’t create new pilot jobs or movement. From a corporate perspective maybe it makes SW bigger. I’m having trouble understanding how a SW pilot would benefit from an acquiring an Airbus carrier. To me it looks like way for consolidation not growth, and certainly not a good deal for SW pilots?

Grumpyaviator

it wouldn’t help pilots at all. Buying planes is better, for us anyway.

WHACKMASTER

The last two acquisitions would prove that to be a compete fallacy as SWA pilots were able to successfully “capture” the acquired carriers Cptn seats.