Another blow to the global airline industry comes as the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has mandated inspections of all Boeing 787 Dreamliners.
The decision follows an incident in March involving a LATAM aircraft, which abruptly dove mid-air and resulted in injuries to over 50 pax.
The regulator said that the directive affects 158 US-registered aircraft and 737 worldwide.
According to data from Mabrian, the ruling is expected to potentially impact more than 18 million seats across around 64,000 flights worldwide over the next 30 days. Major airlines such as All Nippon Airways, Qatar Airways, American Airlines, United Airlines and Air Europa, among others, will face significant challenges, potentially leading to global travel disruptions.
Air Canada has stated they do not expect operational disruptions.
Air Canada spokesperson Peter Fitzpatrick told Open Jaw, “The issue raised in the FAA directive was previously identified at other carriers, and we have already undertaken the necessary preventative inspection. We will re-inspect the seats in compliance with the new directive as we do with all such directives. We expect no operational impact as a result.”
The FAA said on Monday that the captain’s and first officer’s seats on certain 787-8, 787-9 and 787-10 aeroplanes should be inspected “for missing or cracked rocker switch caps and for cracked or nonfunctional switch cover assemblies” within 30 days.
During the March flight by Chile-based Latam Airlines, CBS reports that the captain's seat moved forward, hitting a switch that disconnected the autopilot system.
Chilean authorities reported that en route from Australia to New Zealand, the plane experienced a sudden 400-foot (120-meter) drop before the co-pilot regained control.
The FAA said the apparent reason for the dive was the uncommanded movement of the captain's seat, which caused the auto-pilot to disconnect, Reuters reports.
The FAA has received five reports of issues with the captain and first officer seats on 787s, with the most recent report in June.
The agency regulates flights into and over U.S. territorial airspace. Carriers operating routes between America and Europe, such as Air Canada, WestJet, United Airlines, American Airlines, LATAM Airlines, and Air Europa, must reorganize their seating and flight schedules within the next month.
Airlines will be required to fix any issues found, as the FAA stated that uncommanded movement of an occupied seat could cause the airplane to descend rapidly, potentially injuring pax and crew.
Boeing announced on 19AUG that it had suspended test flights for its 777-9 after a component between the engine and airplane structure failed to perform during a maintenance check.
"During scheduled maintenance, we identified a component that did not perform as designed," Boeing said in a statement.
"Our team is replacing the part and capturing any learnings from the component and will resume flight testing when ready."
Boeing stated that each 777-9 has four thrust links - two on each engine for redundancy. This component is new to the 777-9 and is not utilized on existing 777s or other aircraft.
