Sep. 15--Horizon Air will restore as much as 90 percent of its flight schedule by Tuesday as it completes landing gear inspections on its fleet of Bombardier Q400 propjets, the airline said Friday.
Horizon is inspecting the landing gear on its 33 Q400s because of safety officials' concern about possible wear that could cause the landing gear to collapse on heavily used aircraft. That fear was triggered by two incidents in Europe this week in which the gear collapsed on two SAS aircraft.
Canadian air-safety authorities advised airlines operating the 160 Q400s now in service to ground them until they have cleared inspections. Horizon grounded its aircraft beginning Wednesday and has been returning them to service as they cleared inspections. As of Friday evening, about half of the planes were back in the air. Horizon officials estimated about two planes per day will return to the fleet.
The airline canceled 154 flights Thursday and 89 flights Friday as it returned some planes to service. It plans to cancel 54 flights today and even fewer cancellations Sunday and Monday.
Horizon spokesman Dan Russo said that rather than changing its schedule every day as planes returned to its fleet, the airline will publish what he called a "steady-state schedule" Monday for the next week.
The airline expects to return to a normal schedule by Sept. 25. Such a schedule will give Horizon reservations personnel time to call fliers well in advance of their canceled flights to advise them they will need to rebook.
The SeaTac-based regional airline has not had any problems with landing gear on its planes, but it decided to institute the precautionary inspections to be sure the gear on its planes had no flaws.
Customers on canceled flights have been offered full refunds or no-fee rebookings, even if they had purchased nonrefundable tickets.
The airline is performing the inspections in Portland and Spokane, where it has maintenance bases. Two levels of inspections have been prescribed by Transport Canada, Canada's air safety agency. The agency told airlines to do a visual inspection of Q400s with fewer than 8,000 landings and takeoffs. For aircraft with more than 8,000 landings and takeoffs, it mandated a more involved inspection.
The Q400 is the largest plane in Horizon's fleet. It carries 76 passengers.
John Gillie: 253-597-8663
Contact info
Check or change your Horizon Air reservation: www.alaskaair.com or 1-800-547-9308.
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