Boeing under pressure amid cancelled flights, Trump tweets

Boeing faces a wave of flight cancellations by US airlines and pressure from President Donald Trump to re-brand its top-selling 737 MAX aircraft, a month after the plane was grounded worldwide in the wake of deadly crashes.

American and Southwest Airlines say the grounding will disrupt scheduled flights through the summer, during the peak travel season which helps generate corporate profits.

American is cancelling all 737 MAX flights through August 19 while Southwest, which owns the largest 737 MAX fleet, with 34 planes, is cancelling them until August 5.

United Airlines, which also ordered the 737 MAX 9, did not respond to an AFP query.

In all, an average of 275 flights a day will be cancelled, which are likely to put a dent in airline profits and could cause the companies to raise airfares.

American already cut a key industry revenue metric -- Total Revenue per Available Seat-Mile, or TRASM -- saying it will rise one percent in 2019, down from a prior estimate of two per cent.

Southwest is allowing affected passengers to reschedule flights at no additional cost.

"Neither Airbus nor Boeing like cancellations and there are stiff contracts which make this very difficult," said Scott Hamilton, managing editor of the aviation news site Leeham News and Analysis.

"The companies will swap airplane types, however, if it comes to this."
"We know we have a deep responsibility to everyone who flies on our airplanes to ensure that the MAX is one of the safest aircraft ever to fly."