Snarled flights. A blocked merger. Two major accidents, another Boeing 737 MAX grounding and a new Federal Aviation Administration investigation of Boeing.
We’re just over two weeks into 2024, but what a year it’s already been for the airline industry.
JetBlue’s planned merger with Spirit Airlines was blocked by the government Tuesday. At JetBlue, the fallout will have to be sorted out by a new CEO after the carrier’s current boss announced that he planned to step down. When she takes over, Joanna Geraghty will become the first woman to lead a major U.S. airline.
Since Friday, more than 10,000 flights have been canceled — and nearly 40,000 more delayed. After relatively few flight disruptions during the Christmas and New Year’s holidays, the airlines’ run of good luck finally ran out.
Of course, not all of those cancellations were weather-related. United Airlines and Alaska Airlines have canceled several hundred flights a day for more than a week because of the grounding of Boeing’s 737 MAX 9 variant.
That came after a highly publicized accident in which a panel along the plane’s wall blew out midflight, resulting in a frightening “explosive” decompression at about 16,000 feet. Miraculously, no one was seriously hurt — but the incident put Boeing back in the safety spotlight for its MAX jets. The episode was worrisome enough that the FAA decided to launch an investigation of Boeing’s quality control processes.
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