Empty 737 Max planes fly to home bases from Florida

One day after President Trump ordered the grounding of the advanced Boeing 737 Max jetliners over safety concerns, airlines that operate them in South Florida juggled schedules Thursday and made arrangements to fly empty planes back to their home bases.

American Airlines — which operates a far-flung Latin American and U.S. hub at Miami International Airport — appeared to be the airline affected the most.

Airport spokesman Greg

Chin said American was still dealing with delays and cancellations Thursday and expects more on Friday. Chin said American had 17 arrivals and 11 departures canceled Thursday.

“They’re projecting additional cancellations into at least tomorrow,” Chin said. The 11 cancellations Thursday included flights to Boston, Denver, San Jose, Costa Rica, the Caribbean island destinations of

Port-au-Spain and Antigua, and Quito, Ecuador.

The Brazilian airline GOL and Cayman Airways each had an arrival and a departure canceled. Both foreign carriers grounded their affected 737s on Monday, Chin said. The Panamanian airline Copa flew an empty Super Max back to Panama on Wednesday after dropping off passengers in Miami.

Chin said American had been operating the Super Max on 42 departures daily at Miami. He added that 11 of the affected aircraft were scheduled to be ferried without passengers back to the carrier’s large maintenance center in Tulsa, OK., starting mid-afternoon Thursday.

“When the ground stop went into effect, any flights in the air were allowed to continued to their destinations,” he said.

Any planes still on the ground when the federal order was initiated were ferried to wherever the airlines decided to warehouse them, although the carriers needed Federal Aviation Administration approval to transport them.

Carriers forced to delay or cancel flights were re-booking or granting refunds to passengers whose travel plans were disrupted. Southwest Airlines pledged to re-book passengers on alternate flights for free within 14 days. American said it is refunding money to passengers whose flights were canceled.

Customers scheduled to fly with airlines operating the advanced airliner can check the status of their flights by consulting FlightAware.com or SeatGuru.com.

Greg Meyer, spokesman for Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, said flight disruptions at the Broward County airport were minimal after the groundings.

“We’ve had very little impact here,” Meyer said. The last Super Max to leave the airport was operated by the Canadian carrier WestJet, which left for Calgary on Wednesday night.

He said a pair of Southwest flights were canceled. But the airlines, he said, “are accommodating passengers with other aircraft.

“It’s business as usual,” he said. “People are looking at this as an anomaly.”

Air Canada was the only airline flying the affected plane in and out of Palm Beach International Airport, said Lacy Larson, director of airports marketing. The airline canceled trips to and from Toronto on Wednesday and Thursday, and was expected to cancel a flight Friday.

Trump acted after an Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 Max crashed on takeoff in East Africa this week, killing all 157 aboard.

The accident followed the crash several months ago of a Lion Air plane of the same make off the coast of Indonesia, killing 189.

After investigators concluded there were similarities surrounding both disasters, Trump ordered the FAA to ground all of the Max planes, which in turn created flight disruptions around the U.S.