United Airlines: Boeing Blowout Cost US$200m

United Airlines has blamed Boeing for a US$200m (FJ$455.19m) hit to its earnings in the first three months of this year.

The carrier was forced to ground its Boeing 737 MAX 9 fleet for three weeks after a mid-air cabin blowout on an Alaska Airlines flight in January.

United said that pushed it to a pretax loss of US$164m (FJ$373.26m) for the first quarter.

The airline said it “would have reported a quarterly profit” otherwise.

However, the loss was smaller than Wall Street expected and United’s shares rose by more than 5 per cent after the announcement. United has 79 Boeing 737 MAX 9s in its fleet, more than any of its rivals, and second only to Alaska Airlines.

United and Alaska were forced to cancel thousands of flights as inspections were carried out in January before the US aviation regulator cleared the planes to resume flying.

The BBC has contacted Boeing for comment on United’s announcement.

Earlier this month, Boeing paid US$160m (FJ$364.15m) to Alaska to make up for losses the airline has suffered.

United told investors that its operations were also impacted by delays to deliveries of Boeing planes.

“We’ve adjusted our fleet plan to better reflect the reality of what the manufacturers are able to deliver,” United’s chief executive Scott Kirby said in a statement.