CHICAGO/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - United Airlines Holdings Inc said on Friday it is extending cancellations of Boeing 737 MAX flights from early March until June 4, the longest that any U.S. carrier is scheduling without the grounded aircraft.

The decision follows comments from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) that it still has nearly a dozen steps to complete before approving the jets for flight after a mid-March global safety ban in the wake of two fatal crashes. Reuters reported earlier U.S. officials do not expect the FAA to allow flights until at least February and it could slip to March.

Boeing said last week that it was freezing 737 production in January as the fallout from the two crashes, one in Indonesia and another in Ethiopia that killed a total 346 people, drags on.

Without the 737 MAX, United said it is cancelling about 56 flights a day in January and February, which tend to be slower travel months, with daily cancellations rising to 80 in March and April and 108 in May and the early part of June.

"With the MAX return to service date still unknown, pushing our timeline back to early June is what is best for our customers and our operation. By moving the return to service date back more than just a month - as we have done previously throughout 2019 - it allows us to have more certainty by providing our customers and our operation a firmer and more definitive timeline," United spokesman Frank Benenati said.

Southwest Airlines Co and American Airlines Group Inc, the other two U.S. carriers that had 737 MAX jets in their fleets at the time of the grounding, are scheduling without the aircraft until early April.

Boeing said it deeply regrets "the disruption that the 737 MAX grounding is causing our customers and their passengers. We are working with all of our customers to support them through this difficult time."

(Reporting by Tracy Rucinski and David Shepardson; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

 

So the FAA grounded the plane because of Trump and political correctness?


Uh. What?

 

Follow the hard-over rudder example and how that all played out. Then fast forward to the MAX.



The first country to ground the MAX was China. Mind you, the wreckage hasn’t even cooled enough to have been approached yet when they did it. What possible interest would China have in sowing discord and distrust for our companies and products? After all, they’re all about safety, right? If you haven’t spent any time flying abroad, I invite you to read the book called “Flying Upside Down.” It’s available in PDF and is free.

EASA followed suit shortly thereafter.

Now, if anything, these two accidents have proven is that the NTSB and the need for an independent accident investigation are obsolete concepts. All we need are Facebook and Twitter and throw in our sensationalist MSM.

My point is, the jet shouldn’t have been grounded for more than 2-3 weeks at most, if at all. We all know how to deal with the potential problem. Again, I refer you to the rudder issues with the earlier 737’s and how that was handled.

Don’t mistake this for thinking we don’t need to address and improve processes, products and oversight, but at this point, it has become pure politics and has absolutely nothing to do with safety.

 

Should have been grounded after the first crash. If you don't think it should have been grounded after the 2nd one went into suicide mode, then

And be careful with the "I'd have figured it out, I'm AMERICAN" mentality. We've had our fair share of weird, hard to understand lapses of judgment and airmanship in this country.

 

What do you know about hardover rudder issues with the early 737’s? Just curious...

 

Experienced 737 pilots know about the rash of rudder PCU failures that caused 2 fatal crashes and 8 more related upsets. The NTSB findings are public.

Aside form that, your point is?

 

Exactly... how many times did we ground the fleet?

 

The PCU was a technical fix, the investigation process worked and they found the problem part in the PCU.

The MAX is more insidious, like the PCU mishaps, it was easy to find the offending system (or lack of redundancy). I believe with MCAS, Boeing misplaced the confidence that the FAA granted after (arguably) abusing it’s limited self-certification authority.

The result of the investigation produced a quick technical fix, although the FAA seems to be treating the mishap as an internal human factors stand down. I don’t expect Boeing will enjoy the ability to self certify for quite a while and the delay appears to be the regulator trying to re-write its procedures on certification. My guess is the reason it’s not going faster is probably the same reason that they allowed Boeing to self certify in the first place - no in-house talent with any real depth.

 

Right, but notice a few things:

1) No emotion-based grounding of the jet despite the obvious problem. Instead we received guidance on how to deal with the issue.

2) If I remember right, the airlines were given some time to implement the fix.

3) There was no social media.

 

Regardless of your red/blue allegiance and belief in the current state of our country versus three years ago, I don’t think you’ll find too many intelligent people that actually believe President Trump is a methodical, rational actor. That said, didn’t most of the world already ground the jet by the time he started tweeting about it?