The Boeing 737 Max 9 Plane May Return to Service As Soon As Tomorrow — What to Know

25.01.2024 - 17:53 / travelandleisure.com / Scott Kirby / Toby Enqvist / Mike Whitaker

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has laid out a path for the beleaguered Boeing 737 MAX 9 aircraft to return to service as soon as Friday after a mid-air blowout grounded the planes.

The FAA approved a “thorough inspection and maintenance process” for each of the 171 affected aircraft in the United States, making it a possibility the planes would start flying again in a matter of days. The FAA will require an inspection of specific bolts, guide tracks, and fittings, visual inspections of left and right mid-cabin exit door plugs, and more.

“We grounded the Boeing 737 9 MAX within hours of the incident over Portland and made clear this aircraft would not go back into service until it was safe,” FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker said in a statement. “The exhaustive, enhanced review our team completed after several weeks of information gathering gives me and the FAA confidence to proceed to the inspection and maintenance phase.”

Alaska Airlines, which counts 65 of the aircraft in its fleet, said in a statement it expects to «bring our first few planes back into scheduled commercial service on Friday...with more planes added every day as inspections are completed and each aircraft is deemed airworthy.”

Inspections are expected to take up to 12 hours for each plane.

“Each of our aircraft will only return to service once the rigorous inspections are completed and each aircraft is deemed airworthy according to the FAA requirements,” Alaska said in the statement.

United Airlines, which has 79 737 MAX 9 planes in its fleet, told Travel + Leisure in a statement the airline would inspect its own affected aircraft “in the days ahead” and expected the aircraft to return to service starting on Sunday.

“We will only return each MAX 9 aircraft to service once this thorough inspection process is complete,” Chief Operations Officer Toby Enqvist said in a statement shared with T+L. “Our entire Tech Ops team has rallied to get this done and have been on this from day one, and they have more work to do in the days ahead.”

The FAA first grounded the planes earlier this month after an Alaska Airlines 737-9 MAX aircraft suffered a dramatic mid-air blowout of a plug door panel on a flight from Portland, Oregon, to Ontario, California, on Jan. 5. Following the incident, both Alaska and United Airlines found loose bolts and hardware on their planes, and both airlines were forced to cancel hundreds of flights.

United CEO Scott Kirby has since said the airline was reconsidering ordering Boeing 737 Max 10 planes in the future, the next and larger iteration of the aircraft.

Beyond inspecting the planes to return to service, the FAA said it would not grant any production expansion of the MAX planes and was planning increased