Juan Herrera
WMAL.com
WASHINGTON (WMAL) – Southwest Airlines has announced that it will remove the Boeing Co 737 MAX jet from its flight schedules through Sept. 2.
The airline initially scheduled the removal to continue until Aug. 5, but it has decided to extend the suspension of these jets by an additional month.
This announcement comes after the airline said it would continue to wait for more information from Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration regarding changes to flight software and pilot training.
Southwest Airlines said this decision will reduce the number of last-minute flight cancellations and unexpected disruptions to customers’ travel plans. The airline also plans on reaching out to customers whose itineraries may be impact by these changes.
The full statement from Southwest Airlines can be found below:
Southwest Airlines continues to await guidance from Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on the impending 737 MAX software enhancements and training requirements. We are encouraged by the reported progress and proposed path forward for returning the aircraft to service, and we remain confident that, once certified by the FAA, the enhancements will support the safe operation of the MAX.
In April, we revised our flight schedule by removing the MAX through Aug. 5 to offer reliability to our operation and stability for our Customers during the busy summer travel months. With the timing of the MAX’s return-to-service still uncertain, we are again revising our plans to remove the MAX from our schedule through Sept. 2.
By proactively removing the MAX from scheduled service, we can reduce last-minute flight cancellations and unexpected disruptions to our Customers’ travel plans. We will proactively contact all Customers whose itineraries will be impacted by the revision to offer them maximum flexibility and re-accommodate them well in advance of their travel date. The revision will proactively remove roughly 100 daily flights from our schedule out of our total peak-day schedule of more than 4,000 daily flights.
We offer our apologies to our Customers impacted by this change, and we thank them for their continued patience.
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