American has confirmed Sunday that it’s further extending its Max 8 flight cancellations through mid August from the earlier announced date of June 5th. A similar move was taken by Southwest Airlines last week.
American operates close to 115 Max 8 flights everyday and this extension of temporary grounding is going to impact a lot of US travelers, the airline has said that all affected passengers will be contacted in advance for rebooking and rescheduling of flight dates.
American has 24 MAX 8 flights in its fleet, second only to Southwest which has 34 of them. It may be noted that just last week American extended its Max8 flight cancellations through June 5th from the previous time frame of April 5th. Sunday’s move by American to further extend all flight cancellations relating to Max8 model through August 19 shouldn’t come as a surprise because the US FAA hasn’t recertified about the safety of the Max 8 models after they were grounded by it temporarily since mid March, following two deadly crashes involving this model.
American CEO Doug Parker and President Robert Isom have issued a letter on Sunday to their employees and reassured them that they are highly confident that the US FAA will recertify the grounded Boeing Max 8 planes before the extended deadline.
“By extending our cancellations through the summer, we can plan more reliably for the peak travel season and provide confidence to our customers and team members when it comes to their travel plans”, the executives said.
By removing MAX 8 planes from its summer schedule through August, the airline feels that this will enable them to plan more reliably for the peak summer travel season.
