Carriers cancel more Boeing 737 MAX flights as Ethiopian Airlines crash victims’ families refuse to settle
- Southwest Airlines will not schedule 737 MAX flights until October 1, which will result in about 150 daily flight cancellations
- Judge orders Boeing to turn over documents about the MAX to lawyers for families of crash victims
Southwest Airlines will not schedule Boeing 737 MAX flights until at least October 1, the airline said on Thursday, just as the families of some Ethiopian Airline crash victims told a Chicago judge they are not ready to settle litigation.
Boeing shares lost 2.4 per cent as the Chicago manufacturer grapples with the fallout of two deadly crashes of its 737 MAX aircraft within five months, which prompted a worldwide grounding in March and a string of litigation.
On Wednesday, the US Federal Aviation Administration warned it had uncovered a new issue that must be resolved before the plane can be ungrounded.
Boeing has been working on an upgrade for a stall-prevention system known as MCAS since a Lion Air crash in Indonesia in October, when pilots were believed to have lost a tug of war with software that repeatedly pushed the nose down.
The families of Lion Air crash victims are in settlement talks with Boeing, which means the company can avoid prolonged and potentially costly court litigation.
However, the families of some victims of a second crash on Ethiopian Airlines in March are not ready to settle, their lawyers told a Chicago judge on Thursday.
“More and more information is coming to light every day,” lawyer Robert Clifford, who represents families of several Ethiopian Airline victims, said in court.
His clients want to know what Boeing knew about potential risk in its 737 MAX aircraft and what the company intends to do about it, he said.
A judge granted a request by Clifford and other plaintiff lawyers for discovery over objections by Boeing, meaning the company must turn over documents about the MAX.
Boeing will not conduct a certification test flight – a necessary step before formally requesting FAA approval of new software – until July 8, under a best-case scenario.
That means the eventual return of the aircraft for flight may drag into the fourth quarter of the year, analysts said.
Southwest, the world’s largest MAX operator with 34 planes and dozens more on order, said its decision to remove the MAX from its flying schedule until October 1 would result in about 150 daily flight cancellations out of its total peak daily schedule of 4,000.
Southwest said it “made this decision before any developments of the past few days”.
American Airlines, which has cancelled MAX flights through early September, said on Thursday it was continuing to monitor the situation, while United Airlines on Wednesday extended its cancellations into September.
