EU airlines unaffected by grounding of some 737 Max aircraft

European airlines are not expected to be affected by the grounding of some Boeing 737-9 Max aircraft following an incident on an Alaska Airlines’ flight in the US last week.

The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on Saturday (6 January) temporarily grounded certain Boeing Max 737-9 aircraft “operated by US airlines or in US territory”, following the Alaska Airlines’ incident on Friday (5 January) when a piece of fuselage came off a plane after taking off from Portland in Oregon. 

The flight was able to return to Portland and make a safe emergency landing, despite an exit panel becoming detached from the aircraft inflight, which caused “rapid decompression of the cabin”.

The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) said it had also adopted the FAA’s Emergency Airworthiness Directive (EAD) to ground this particular configuration of Boeing 737-9. But the agency added that no EU airlines currently operated these aircraft in the same configuration as the affected Alaska Airlines’ flight.

“EASA took the decision to adopt the FAA’s EAD despite the fact that – to the agency’s knowledge and also on the basis of statements from the FAA and Boeing – no airline in an EASA member state currently operates an aircraft in the relevant configuration,” said EASA in a statement

“In the specific set-up covered by the EAD, a mid-cabin exit is replaced by a plug-in panel. This configuration is typically adopted by airlines flying lower-density operations (with lower passenger capacity) where this additional exit is not required to meet evacuation safety requirements.

“The 737-9 aircraft operating in Europe do not have this configuration and are therefore not grounded by the EAD and can continue to operate normally.”

Similarly, the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said there were no UK-registered 737-9 Max aircraft so the impact on the industry would be “minimal”.

“We have written to non-UK and foreign permit carriers to ask inspections have been undertaken prior to operation in UK airspace,” added the CAA.

In the US, the FAA has grounded 171 Boeing 737-9 Max aircraft which will undergo inspection before being able to resume service. Each inspection is likely to take between four and eight hours to complete.

Before the FAA’s announcement, Alaska Airlines had decided to ground its entire Boeing 737 Max fleet, while United Airlines also followed suit.

Boeing said in a statement: “Safety is our top priority and we deeply regret the impact this event has had on our customers and their passengers. We agree with and fully support the FAA’s decision to require immediate inspections of 737-9 airplanes with the same configuration as the affected airplane.”

The latest problem with Boeing’s 737 Max aircraft is not related to the issues that saw the worldwide fleet of aircraft grounded after two fatal crashes in 2018 and 2019. The aircraft was cleared to fly again in Europe in January 2021.