Getting from Dallas to Oakland just got a bit more difficult because of the Boeing 737 Max crisis.
American Airlines is canceling its direct flights between the two cities, the company confirmed on Tuesday.
American, United and Southwest have canceled hundreds of daily flights following the worldwide grounding of the 737 Max in March after two fatal crashes. In most cases, the airlines were able to add other planes on the same routes. But American flew one daily route from Oakland to its home base at Dallas-Fort Worth and back. It now needs to use the plane that had been flying the route for other flights with greater demand.
The route will be canceled as of Friday, and will remain canceled through at least September 3. It is the first US airline to cancel a route because of the plane’s grounding.
“Our goal is to minimize the impact to the smallest number of customers,” American said in a statement. “American has additional service from San Francisco and San Jose [to Dallas-Fort Worth], and we can connect passengers from Oakland via our Phoenix hub.”
It is now apparent that the 737 Max will be grounded through at least late this year. Boeing has confirmed it won’t even submit its latest fix for the aircraft to the FAA until September, so this and other flights will likely stay canceled longer than early September. Last week Southwest announced its canceled flights would be extended until at least October 1.
“By proactively removing the Max from scheduled service, we can reduce last-minute flight cancellations and unexpected disruptions to our customers’ travel plans,” said Southwest.
