Alaska Airlines isn’t sure how many new Boeing planes they’re getting this year. There have been some problems with Boeing lately, including a door blowing out on one of their planes in January. This caused a bunch of safety checks and slowed down Boeing’s production line.
Alaska Airlines originally planned to get 23 new 737 MAX planes this year, but now they might only get between 10 and 20. They are still waiting on some planes that are already built, but they aren’t sure how many more they’ll get after that. Some of these new planes will replace their older 737 models.
Alaska Airlines also wants to get some bigger 737-10 airplanes, but those might be delayed too. They need to wait for Boeing to get those planes certified for flight, which could take longer than expected.
On top of all this, Alaska Airlines is thinking about buying another airline, Hawaiian Airlines. If that happens, they’ll need even more airplanes in the future! Alaska Airlines says they need to take some time to figure out exactly how many Boeing planes they need. They might end up buying fewer than they originally planned.
This whole situation has also hurt Alaska Airlines’ business a little bit. They lost money in the first few months of the year, partly because they couldn’t use some of their planes while they were getting checked for safety reasons. Boeing gave them some money to help make up for this, but it wasn’t enough to cover all of their losses.
