Southwest Airlines extends flight cancellations on Boeing 737 MAX through 2 September

After American Airlines, another U.S. carrier has extended flight cancellations on the grounded Boeing 737 MAX as Southwest Airlines continues to await guidance from Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on the impending 737 MAX software enhancements and training requirements.

“We are encouraged by the reported progress and proposed path forward for returning the aircraft to service, and we remain confident that, once certified by the FAA, the enhancements will support the safe operation of the MAX,” the airline wrote in a statement.

“In April, we revised our flight schedule by removing the MAX through Aug. 5 to offer reliability to our operation and stability for our Customers during the busy summer travel months. With the timing of the MAX’s return-to-service still uncertain, we are again revising our plans to remove the MAX from our schedule through Sept. 2.

By proactively removing the MAX from scheduled service, we can reduce last-minute flight cancellations and unexpected disruptions to our Customers’ travel plans. We will proactively contact all Customers whose itineraries will be impacted by the revision to offer them maximum flexibility and re-accommodate them well in advance of their travel date. The revision will proactively remove roughly 100 daily flights from our schedule out of our total peak-day schedule of more than 4,000 daily flights.

We offer our apologies to our Customers impacted by this change, and we thank them for their continued patience.”