Alaska Airlines announced on Wednesday, Jan. 24, that in compliance with Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) inspection and maintenance processes for its grounded 737 9-Max fleet, the company will begin returning grounded planes to service beginning on Jan. 26.
In a press release, the recently embattled aviation company said the FAA approval was handed down on Jan. 24, and stated they were “ready to perform these detailed inspections of our planes.”
The release says the 737s will only return to service once the rigorous inspections are completed and each aircraft is deemed airworthy according to the FAA requirements. Alaska Airlines currently has 65 737-9 MAX in their fleet. The inspections are expected to take up to 12 hours for each plane.
Following these inspections by Alaska maintenance technicians, the company expects to bring its first few planes back into scheduled commercial service on Friday, Jan. 26.
At the request of the FAA, Alaska maintenance technicians completed preliminary inspections on 20 of the grounded 737-9 MAX aircraft two weeks ago. The data collected was provided to the FAA for further analysis. Those findings informed the FAA’s final orders for thorough inspections of the door plug on each of the out-of-service aircraft.
With the CEO of Boeing addressing lawmakers on Capitol Hill Wednesday, Alaska Senator Dan Sullivan pushed officials to complete inspections to return the aircraft to service.
Americans take for granted that our aviation travel is the safest form of travel anywhere in America–anywhere in the world. We have to keep it that way,” said Senator Sullivan on Capitol Hill Wednesday. “[65 planes is] 20% of the fleet of Alaska Airlines. That’s pretty much how all of my constituents travel, not just within Alaska, but all over the country, and they’re being hugely negatively impacted.”
In the release, Alaska Airlines states, “We are now ready to implement those final orders.”
“The first of our 737-9 MAX will resume flying on Friday, Jan. 26, with more planes added every day as inspections are completed and each aircraft is deemed airworthy,” the company said on Wednesday. “We expect inspections on all our 737-9 MAX to be completed over the next week.”
