Six Boeing 737 MAX grounded in Canary Islands as EU ceases all operations
Thursday, March 14, 2019 @ 1:15 PM
SIX Boeing 737 MAX 8 are stranded on the runway at airports in the Canary Islands now that the European Union has joined China, India, Mongolia, Ethiopia and Australia in grounding them all.
Five at Gran Canaria airport and one at Tenerife South have been taken out of use – the latter being a Thomson craft and the others including a TUI and a Travel Service.
Of the Gran Canaria Boeings, three are operated by the low-cost carrier Norwegian, which runs regular flights from several Spanish airports to and from the UK and is a relatively new service, having launched around seven years ago, and whose facilities include free-of-charge on-board WiFi.
The European Air Safety Agency (EASA) issued an emergency announcement yesterday (Tuesday) calling for all Boeing 737 MAX aircraft to be grounded.
Spain’s airport governing body AENA says two Norwegian flights had to be cancelled at the last minute, although passengers were placed on other aircraft run by the same company and reached their destination with minimal delay.
Also, says AENA, a TUI flight between Banjul (Gambia) and Amsterdam (The Netherlands) was given the order in mid-air to land immediately at the nearest airport, which turned out to be Gran Canaria.
Read more at thinkSPAIN.com