NEWS: Orlando Airport Sees Rising Cancellations Following Alaska Airlines Incident

On Friday, January 5th, an Alaska Airlines plane made an emergency landing at the Portland airport after a midair pressure issue caused a window and panel to be blown out of its fuselage, creating a large hole in the cabin. 

The next day, the airline company grounded all 65 of its Boeing 737 Max 9 jets so inspections could be conducted for safety measures before any other flights with the aircraft. Now, we’re seeing this grounding of planes affecting the company and consumers the week following the emergency.

According to CNN, both Alaska Airlines and United Airlines had a combined cancellation of 342 flights on Monday, January 8th. Both airline companies are major users of the Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft.

Alaska Airlines has 65 of the 737 jets in its fleet. They have said that they cannot return the aircraft to service until they are given direction by the FAA on how to inspect the aircraft.  The airline stated, “While we await the airworthiness directive inspection criteria from the FAA and Boeing, our maintenance teams are prepared and ready to perform the required inspections.”

Alaska Airlines also shared that, “cancellations will continue through the first half of the week, and we encourage guests with travel plans to continue to check their email and alaskaair.com for updates.”

United Airlines operates about 79 of the 737 aircraft, so this grounding could be playing a big factor in their 204 cancellations on Monday.

According to FlightAware, Monday morning brought 16 flight cancellations to Orlando International Airport, specifically. 11 of those were United Airlines and 4 were Alaska Airlines. It is possible that these cancellations could be due to the grounding of the 737s. If you’re planning to fly to Disney World this week, it will be important to keep a close eye on your flight, especially if you’re flying either of these airlines.

We will likely continue to see cancellations throughout the coming week. Hopefully, your trip to Disney World isn’t affected by these issues. But the airlines are working to continue operations, so keep checking for updates.

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