Copa pulls troubled Boeing Max planes from fleet

Copa Airlines has removed Boeing MAX aircraft from its fleet until mid-December due to delays in Boeing obtaining safety certifications from U.S. aviation authorities.

In his report of income and expenses for the second quarter, Pedro Heilbron, executive director of Copa Airlines, said that the company took MAX aircraft out of its programming until December 15.

The stoppage of the six MAX aircraft has impacted the company’s operation on its long-term flights, such as San Francisco, the United States, and Buenos Aires, Argentina.

To take full advantage of its fleet of 104 aircraft, the airline has canceled flights on some of its routes, including its internal flight to David, in Chiriqui province.

For this year, Boeing was to have ed deliver another seven MAX 9 aircraft to Copa, a delay that will impact the operations of the airline, a decrease that will be felt more strongly in the second half of the year, according to estimates of the company’s executive plan.

In addition to reducing the transport capacity of the Panamanian airline, problems with MAX aircraft also impacted the expansion plans of the company’s low-cost subsidiary, Wingo.

By the end of 2019, the company was scheduled to maintain a plane in Panama to offer flights from to Colombia and Cuba, among others, but now those plans have moved to the second quarter of 2020.