EVERETT — Alaska Airlines canceled 140 flights Monday, including two Paine Field departures, after the Federal Aviation Administration ordered all Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft temporarily grounded.
Alaska Airlines spokesperson Ray Lane said the Seattle-based airline canceled two flights Monday from the Everett airport: an 8 a.m. flight to Los Angeles and a 1:15 p.m. departure to Honolulu.
“Out of all airports, we’ve been hit the least,” said Brett Smith CEO of Propeller Airports, which built and operates the two-gate passenger terminal at Paine Field. “All these people got rebooked out of Sea-Tac. They weren’t left stranded.”
Cancellations at Paine Field and other airports are expected to continue through the first half of the week. Passengers with travel plans should check their email and alaskaair.com for updates.
“The 737-9 MAX grounding has significantly impacted our operation,” Alaska Airline said in a statement. The airline canceled 170 flights Sunday and 140 on Monday with more expected.
Cancellations affected thousands of travelers, the airline said.
Currently, Alaska Airlines and subsidiary Horizon Air are the only airlines serving the Everett terminal.
Together, they offer about a dozen daily flights to mostly West Coast destinations. Horizon operates smaller Embraer E175 jets that seat 76 passengers. In November, Alaska added daily nonstop service to Honolulu.
On Saturday, federal regulators issued an emergency airworthiness directive, grounding the Boeing 737 Max 9 after a chunk of the fuselage, a door plug, blew out on Alaska Airlines flight 1282. The jet was climbing at about 16,000 feet when the panel tore off, leaving a gaping hole in the plane’s side.
The 737 Max 9 was carrying 171 passengers and six crew members. The flight, which took off from Portland International Airport about 5 p.m. on Friday for a two-hour trip to Ontario, California, returned to the Portland airport for an emergency landing. The plane landed safely, but several passengers were injured, according to an Associated Press report.
Alaska Airlines has 65 Max 9s in its fleet and United Airlines has 79 Max 9s. They are the only U.S. airlines to fly that particular model, according to an Associated Press report.
On Monday, United Airlines said it found loose bolts after inspecting several of its 737 Max 9s.
“Since we began preliminary inspections on Saturday, we have found instances that appear to relate to installation issues in the door plug — for example, bolts that needed additional tightening,” United Airlines said in a statement. “These findings will be remedied by our Tech Ops team to safely return the aircraft to service.”
On Monday, the FAA approved a method to inspect the grounded aircraft. Instructions were being distributed to airline operators, the FAA said.
“Our technicians have prepared each aircraft to be immediately ready for the required inspection when instructions are finalized,” Alaska said Monday.
The affected 737 Max 9 rolled off the assembly line and received its certification in November, according to online FAA records. It had completed 145 flights since entering commercial service Nov. 11, said FlightRadar24, another tracking service. The flight from Portland was the aircraft’s third of the day, the Associated Press reported.
Videos posted online by passengers on Alaska flight 1282 show a gaping hole where the paneled-over door had been. They applauded when the plane landed safely about 13 minutes after the blowout.
The Boeing 737 series is built in Renton. However, last year Boeing announced it would begin building some 737 Max aircraft at the company’s Paine Field assembly plant later this year. Space became available at the sprawling Everett factory after the airplane maker consolidated production of the Boeing 787 series to South Carolina in 2021 and discontinued the Boeing 747 series in December 2022.
The Max is the newest version of Boeing’s 737 jet, a twin-engine, single-aisle plane. The plane went into service in May 2017.
Two Max 8 jets crashed in 2018 and 2019, killing 346 people. All Max 8 and Max 9 planes were grounded worldwide for nearly two years until Boeing made changes to an automated flight control system implicated in the crashes.
The Max has been plagued by other issues, including manufacturing flaws, concern about overheating that led the FAA to tell pilots to limit use of an anti-ice system and a possible loose bolt in the rudder system, Associated Press reported.
In a statement Saturday, Boeing said: “Safety is our top priority and we deeply regret the impact this event has had on our customers and their passengers. We agree with and fully support the FAA’s decision to require immediate inspections of 737-9 airplanes with the same configuration as the affected airplane.
“In addition, a Boeing technical team is supporting the National Transportation Safety Board’s investigation into last night’s event,” the company added. “We will remain in close contact with our regulator and customers.”
The FAA, National Transportation Safety Board, Boeing and Alaska Airlines were investigating Friday’s incident. The door plug that blew off the plane was recovered Monday in the backyard of a Portland area residence.
There were some recent backups at the Paine Field terminal’s TSA security checkpoint, but those were due to a shortage of TSA staff, said Smith, the Propeller Airports CEO, on Monday.
Janice Podsada: 425-339-3097; jpodsada@heraldnet.com;
Information from Associated Press is included in this report.
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