United pushes 737 Max return until fall, leaving it short on planes for summer travel rush

For the second year in a row, it looks like airlines and travelers are going to be hamstrung by the Boeing 737 Max crisis for peak summer travel season.

United Airlines on Wednesday became the first U.S. carrier to say it plans to remove the plane from its schedule through the summer. The move follows Boeing’s announcement Tuesday that it doesn’t expect regulators to approve the plane’s return until mid-2020, a few months later than it most recently anticipated.

“We do not anticipate flying the Max this summer,’’ Andrew Nocella, United’s chief commercial officer, said on the airline’s quarterly earnings conference call.

United President Scott Kirby said the airline is encouraged by what it hopes is Boeing’s “more realistic timeline’’ and plans to soon announce that it is again pushing back the Max’s return to United’s schedule. 

He said doing so will give United time to get its grounded 737 Max 9s back up and running and schedule pilot classroom and simulator training for the plane.

The airline did not provide further details and the schedule has not yet been changed. United, along with American and Southwest airlines, currently has the plane scheduled to return in early June. 

Airlines have had to repeatedly scramble to adjust their schedules since the Max was grounded in March 2019 following two fatal crashes that killed 346 people in five months. The number of proactive fight cancellations is now in the tens of thousands.

United also said that the Max grounding has delayed its plans to add flights at some of its hubs.