Southwest pulls Max from flights until June, joining US rivals

Southwest Airlines Co., the largest operator of the Boeing Co. 737 Max, is joining U.S. rivals in removing the grounded plane from its flight schedule through early June.

The Max will be pulled through June 6 amid continued uncertainty about when regulators will clear the model to fly, Southwest said. American Airlines Group Inc. and United Airlines Holdings Inc. have already said they won’t fly the Max again until the first week of June.

Regulators grounded the top-selling Boeing model in March 2019 after two crashes killed 346 people. Boeing, which is temporarily halting Max production starting this month, is still awaiting approval of revamped software, including changes to a flight-control system that was implicated in both crashes. Adding to the uncertainty over the Max’s return, Boeing recently recommended flight-simulator training for pilots before the jet carries passengers again.

Southwest’s schedule change will cut about 330 weekday flights from the 4,000 that the company normally operates. The Dallas-based carrier was flying 34 Max planes when the fleet was grounded and was scheduled to have 75 of the jets by the end of last year.

Southwest said in December that it reached a confidential settlement with Boeing to recover costs of the grounding for last year. The company previously said the grounding cut operating income by $830 million in 2019. Terms for 2020 will be negotiated separately.