A United Airlines Boeing 737 Max-9 aircraft grounded at Los Angeles International Airport. (Eric Thayer/Bloomberg/Getty Images)
By Chris Isidore, CNN
New York (CNN) — United Airlines said it expects its fleet of Boeing Max 9 jets to remain grounded through the end of this month and that the company will report a first quarter loss as a result.
Its first quarter loss will be in the range of $116 million to $262 million in the quarter, according to the company. That’s more than the $138 million loss already forecast by analysts surveyed by Refinitiv.
The jets were grounded after a door plug blew off on an Alaska Air flight on January 5, leaving a massive hole in the side of the plane. The plane landed without any serious injuries, but the Federal Aviation Administration ordered the grounding and additional inspections of the more than 200 jets of that model worldwide.
United has 79 of the Max 9s, more than any other airline, and had originally scheduled nearly 8,000 flights with the planefor this month before the incident, according to Cirium, an aviation analytics firm.
The-CNN-Wire
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