CEO Gary Kelly Tells Employees That Projected October 1 Return To Service Is Unlikely

Southwest Airlines will likely not be flying its 737 MAX airplanes in October as it had previously anticipated, according to airline CEO Gary Kelly.

CNBC reports Kelly told employees Monday that the discovery of a new safety issue with the plane's MCAS means a probable delay in the 737 MAX return to service. “I’m sure this will cause us to have to take the MAX out of the schedule beyond Oct. 1,” Kelly said in an internal update. He said that the company will have to look into what other schedule modifications will have to be made for the rest of the year "because it’s obviously extending well beyond what I had hoped."

Kelly did not elaborate on what those modifications might be. Southwest has been trying to cover its 737 MAX routes with other variants of the aircraft, but it is still cancelling about 115 flights per day due to the grounding.

Last week, the FAA announced that the Technical Advisory Board (TAB) had "recently found a potential risk that Boeing must mitigate."

American Airlines Group and United Airlines Holdings have remove the 737 MAX from their schedules through at least early September.

(Image from file)

FMI: Source report