Alaska Airlines cancels hundreds more flights in wake of Boeing 737 Max 9 incident
Mario Tama/Getting Images.
- Alaska Airlines has canceled all Boeing 737 Max 9 flights through Saturday.
- This comes after one of the airline's planes had part of its fuselage blown out mid-flight.
- The canceled flights account for between 110-150 of the airline's flights per day.
Alaska Airlines has canceled all flights scheduled to use Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft through Saturday.
The announcement follows Alaska Airlines flight 1282 encountering an incident where part of its fuselage was blown out mid-flight Friday.
While no one on the flight was seriously injured, a teenage passenger had his shirt sucked off his body and Alaska Airlines announced that it would be temporarily grounding its fleet of Boeing MAX 9s soon after to conduct maintenance and safety inspections with a Federal Aviation Administration order following that. No aircraft will be returned to service until it has gone through a full inspection, according to the airline.
"As of this morning, we have made the decision to cancel all flights on 737-9 Max aircraft through Saturday, Jan. 13 while we conduct inspections and prepare fully for return to service," Alaska Airlines wrote in an update on its website.
According to the announcement, the canceled flights account for 110-150 flights per day. Alaska Airlines conducts around 1,200 total flights per day, the company told Business Insider.
"We hope this action provides guests with a little more certainty, and we are working around the clock to re-accommodate impacted guests on other flights," the company said.
United, another big operator of Max 9 planes, said Wednesday it canceled 167 flights and expects to cancel more on Thursday, according to CNN reporter Pete Muntean.