Airlines Southwest cancels flights due to engine maintenance

On Tuesday, April 17th, 2018, a Southwest Boeing 737-700 experienced an uncontained engine failure, by which a passenger window was taken out. Flight WN1380 left New York La Guardia for Dallas Love, and was still climbing, when the left-hand engine was damaged. Through that occurrence, the engine inlet and parts of the cowl separated from the aircraft and shattered a window.

After the accident, Southwest announced, that it will start a voluntary engine inspection program relating the CFM56 engine family. All of Southwest´s Boeing 737-700s and B737-800s are equipped with this specific engine family.

Since Southwest operates over 700 Boeing 737 aircraft, the process takes time, and results in flight delays and also some flight cancellations. The carrier said, that it targets to complete the overhaul within a month.

The inspections are being done overnight while the aircraft are not flying. Furthermore, the airline utilizes spare aircraft during the day to prevent flights from being cancelled. Southwest said, that on Sunday the airline had to cancel only 40 flights out of 4000, which equals roughly 1 percent of all scheduled flights by the airline.

For the coming week, the carrier also expects a cancellation rate of 1-2 percent.

On Friday, the FAA had issued an Emergency Airworthiness Directive for the CFM56 engine. However, Southwest stated: “These cancellations are not because of Friday night's Emergency Airworthiness Directive from the FAA. The cancellations are a result of our voluntary, accelerated engine fan blade inspection program announced on Tuesday night, as mentioned above.”

Southwest Airlines is a major US low-cost carrier, headquartered in Dallas, Texas. The fleet consists of 710 Boeing 737 aircraft, including 737-700, 737-800 and 737-MAX 8. Southwest serves over 100 destinations and carried 120 million passengers annually in the past years. Recently, the carrier received the 10,000th ever Boeing 737 to be delivered.