Boeing 737 Max 8 grounded at ABIA until further notice

AUSTIN, Texas (FOX 7 Austin) - President Donald Trump says the FAA will ground Boeing 737 Max 8 and 737 Max 9 planes nationwide until further notice. One of these models was involved in the fatal Ethiopian Airlines crash that killed 157 people.

The FAA says the decision was made to ground those models “as a result of the data gathering process and new evidence collected at the site to be analyzed.”

Here at ABIA, only one Airmax Boeing 737 Max 8 is grounded and it’s from Southwest flight 1020. It was supposed to go to Dallas Wednesday but isn’t going anywhere. So the impact in Austin isn’t as great as some other parts of the country.

According to their websites: Southwest is grounding 34 planes, American is grounding 24 planes, and United is grounding 14. United says via twitter - you don’t need to rebook your flight, just show up at the airport because they’ll handle the rest.

Derick Hackett, Public Information Specialist Sr. with Austin-Bergstrom International Airport says, “grounding means that plane cannot take off or land and it’s going to remain here at the airport until the airlines are ordered to do otherwise. I’ve been here 2 years and this is the first time this happened so.”

ABIA says many of today’s cancellations are weather related. They say to arrive early, pack your patience and check ABIA.org for cancellations.

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