NEW YORK (AFP) – Boeing faces a wave of flight cancellations by US airlines and pressure from President Donald Trump to rebrand its top-selling 737 MAX aircraft, a month after the plane was grounded worldwide in the wake of two deadly crashes.
American and Southwest Airlines say the grounding will disrupt scheduled flights through the summer, during the peak travel season which helps generate corporate profits.
American is canceling all 737 MAX flights through August 19 while Southwest, which owns the largest 737 MAX fleet, with 34 planes, is canceling them until August 5.
United Airlines said it had previously used spare aircraft and “creative solutions” to keep from having to cancel flights but cancellations in the busy summer travel season could no longer be avoided.
“No one knows when the FAA review will be complete, so we’ve decided to pull MAX flights out of our schedule through early July,” a spokesperson told AFP on Monday.
In all, an average of 275 flights a day will be canceled, which are likely to put a dent in airline profits and could cause the companies to raise airfares.
American already cut a key industry revenue metric – Total Revenue per Available Seat-Mile, or TRASM – saying it will rise one percent in 2019, down from a prior estimate of two percent.
Southwest is allowing affected passengers to reschedule flights at no additional cost.
“Neither Airbus nor Boeing like cancellations and there are stiff contracts which make this very difficult,” said Scott Hamilton, managing editor of the aviation news site Leeham News and Analysis.
“The companies will swap airplane types, however, if it comes to this.”
All 737 MAX aircraft have been banned from the world’s skies since mid-March after suffering two fatal crashes less than five months apart: a Lion Air flight crashed in the Java Sea in October, leaving 189 dead, and the Ethiopian Airlines crash on March 10, which killed 157 people.
Crash investigators have zeroed in on the planes’ anti-stall system, the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, or MCAS.