Alaska incident: Which airline in India is flying the Boeing 737 MAX and should you be worried?

Aviation has had a turbulent start in 2024, starting with the write off of A350 in Japan after the collision of Japanese coast guard aircraft while landing to the incident in Portland where the Alaska Airlines 737 MAX9 had its door blown off.

The fallout was that Alaska Air immediately grounded its MAX 9 aircraft for checks, which was followed by a grounding order and emergency airworthiness directive from the FAA.

In India, three airlines – Akasa Air, SpiceJet and Air India Express—operate the MAX type. None have been affected by the FAA directive because India does not have a MAX 9 operating with all the aircraft being MAX 8, barring a sole MAX 8200 operated by Akasa Air. With the chequered history, anything to the MAX does raise eyebrows. A total of 40 aircraft are currently registered in India.

What is the issue?

The rear mid-cabin plug on the Alaska Airlines MAX 9 separated inflight leading to its emergency diversion. On the 737-9 MAX, Boeing includes a rear cabin exit door aft of the wings, but before the rear exit door. This is activated in dense seating configurations to meet evacuation requirements. The doors are not activated on Alaska Airlines aircraft and are permanently “plugged.” For passengers seated on these seats, they do not know it is a door, it feels like any other seat.

The FAA grounding impacts only those airlines which have a permanently plugged door and not the entire MAX 9 fleet. These are with airlines who do not have a high density configuration of the MAX 9. A high density configuration requires the door to be active since it is to be used for evacuation in case of emergency. It is too early to point to a cause but early indications are that the plug holding the in activated door in place tore off leading to the door flying off which led to rapid depressurisation of the aircraft and led to an emergency landing.

How many planes are there in India and should you be worried?

Akasa Air has an all MAX fleet comprising 22 aircraft, followed by SpiceJet and Air India Express which have nine each. Entire network of Akasa Air is thus flown by the MAX since they are the only type with the airline. Akasa Air operates to 16 destinations and is slated for a launch to foreign destinations soon.

For Air India Express, the newly launched flights from Bengaluru to Kannur, Trivandrum, Mangalore and Varanasi while those from Hyderabad to Amritsar, Lucknow and Lucknow are amongst those which are flown by the MAX 8. However, with Air India Express having a fleet of B737NG, A320neo and A320ceo in addition to MAX 8, the routes remain subject to change. SpiceJet’s nine aircraft are deployed largely on international flights but a look at flight tracking website Flightradar24 shows that its nine aircraft have been deployed on a mix of domestic and international destinations.These include Mumbai, Chennai, Delhi, Pune, Darbhanga, Patna, Srinagar, Jammu, Kolkata, Port Blair indicating a wide usage by the airline. The airline is also operating international flights with flights to Dubai, Bangkok, Jeddah amongst others.

No regulator, either locally or globally, has raised any concerns on the MAX 8 or MAX 8200 which are in use in India. For the 40 aircraft in India, none have a “plugged” door.

What has the Indian regulator done?

While the question of “plugged door“ does not arise for any planes in India, the Indian regulator asked all operators to conduct a check on its aircraft by Sunday noon, a deadline which has passed and planes are in the air. This check was towards the other emergency exits – which do not have a mechanism to hold it in place and make it inoperative since they are to be used in case of emergency.

Beyond this, the regulator as well as the operators are glued to the directives from FAA which is actively investigating the Alaska Air case.

What next?

The MAX has had negative publicity following it with regulator intervals. A global grounding after two crashes, rework on the MCAS and the public commitment towards safety has all been negated by repeated and periodical reports which have indicated one problem or the other. In the latest, the company had said that there were some MAX which had fastener holes in aft pressure bulkheads which were improperly drilled. This had led to a slowing down of deliveries in the second half of last year, which was later reversed.

India’s Akasa Air is rumoured to place a triple digit order at Wings India – which starts in Hyderabad ten days from now. How does this impact the order , which is likely to be the first major order of 2024?