American Airlines cancelling 90 flights a day after grounding Boeing 737 MAX 8 jets

March 25-- Mar. 25--American Airlines extended its grounding of Boeing 737 MAX 8 jets through April 24, the company said.

President Trump ordered all Boeing 737 MAX 8 jets grounded earlier this month, a move made by several other countries like China and the EU, following the fatal crashes of a Lion Air flight in October and an Ethiopian Airlines crash earlier in March.

American Airlines said it was waiting for investigations by the Federal Aviation Administration, Transportation Department and National Transportation Safety Board to conclude before putting the jets back into service.

"In the meantime, and in an effort to provide more certainty to our customers and team members and better protect our customers on other flights to their final destination, American has extended cancellations through April 24, which will result in approximately 90 cancellations each day," the airline said.

The airline said that affected customers would get contacted directly if their flight was cancelled.

The extended grounding comes after reports that Chicago-based Boeing and the FAA fast-tracked approval of the 737 MAX 8 and overlooked potential dangers and underplayed training requirements in order to keep the jet-maker competitive with Airbus, a multinational European company.

Boeing announced flight-control software fixes for the 737 MAX 8 on Saturday and said it would pay for additional pilot training.

Investigators found that a sensor designed to prevent stalls while the plane ascended malfunctioned in the Lion Air crash. While the Ethiopian Airlines crash is still being investigated, black box data revealed similarities between the two crashes.

U.S. Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Aviation and Space will hold a hearing on airline safety on Wednesday.

___

(c)2019 New York Daily News

Visit New York Daily News at www.nydailynews.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.