美国国家公共电台 NPR Airlines Cancel Boeing Max Flights Into November; Holiday Flights Could Be Next（在线收听）

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

We are several months out, and there are indications that travel over the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays may be more expensive than usual. Two major airlines have pulled Boeing's 737 Max planes from their schedules into early November. They've canceled thousands of flights. And as NPR's David Schaper reports from Chicago, there are signs the troubled plane may remain grounded into next year.

DAVID SCHAPER, BYLINE: Boeing 737 Max airplanes have been grounded since March after investigators linked two crashes that killed a total of 346 people to a problem with an automated flight control system on the plane. For months, Boeing has been saying that problem is fixed. But now there's another problem with the Max, and so the planes still sit.

JOE SCHWIETERMAN: The airlines are really waiting for these planes to get back in the air.

SCHAPER: Joe Schwieterman is a former airline official and now a transportation professor at Chicago's DePaul University.

SCHWIETERMAN: It's just too long to sort of roll with it, particularly American and Southwest and some of the international airlines.

SCHAPER: Last month while testing out Boeing's software fix for the flight control system, the FAA discovered another potentially catastrophic problem with a microprocessor. Boeing says it will take at least until September to develop a fix for the new problem. With a lengthy regulatory review process to follow, United and American Airlines have decided to pull their 737 Max planes out of their flight schedules until early November. Joe Schwieterman says the whole 737 Max debacle raises questions about Boeing.

SCHWIETERMAN: It appears a manageable problem still, but it's becoming a soap opera. And observers wonder if, you know, we've found a second problem with this close scrutiny, are we going to find a third problem? Is this going to become something that just drags on? And people are rightfully nervous.

SCHAPER: Boeing officials say they still expect to have their software fixes completed and approved by regulators in order to have the planes flying passengers again sometime this fall, but aviation industry insiders say it's beginning to look like early next year is a more realistic timeframe. The only U.S. airlines affected are Southwest, American and United. And because they have relatively few of the new planes in their fleets, the impact on travelers has been somewhat limited. Hayley Berg is an economist with the fare forecasting and flight booking app Hopper.

HAYLEY BERG: Given that these cancellations have been extended, we could see that change in the back half of the year, especially with the holidays coming up.

SCHAPER: And she says that means late fall and winter travel plans may be in peril.

BERG: For travelers who are looking to head home for Thanksgiving or the December holidays, they may have more difficulty finding flights. And if they do find them, they might expect that prices will be higher than usual given there's less competition on routes where airlines have pulled back capacity.

SCHAPER: And the longer the 737 Max remains grounded, the greater the problem becomes for airlines. They've ordered many more and had hoped those planes would be flying passengers by now. Without them, expect the number of flight cancellations to grow. David Schaper, NPR News, Chicago.