If you catch a flight to or from Portland, will you ride aboard the type of Boeing jet involved in two recent plane crashes? Probably not.
Based on available flight-plan information, Portland International Airport expects to see only 12 flights aboard the Boeing 737 MAX 8, the model of plane involved in two recent catastrophic crashes, through the end of the month.
The airport has about 250 flights per day, said Kama Simonds, a spokeswoman for the Port of Portland, which owns and operates PDX.
Per the airport’s pre-scheduled flight information, only one carrier, Southwest Airlines, has any local flights planned with the 737 MAX 8, she said.
That they’re already scheduled flights is an important distinction, she said.
Flight schedules are planned and changed based on many factors. While those plans and schedules are set ahead of time, which make and model plane a given flight will use might not factor into the process until after a passenger has bought a ticket, she said.
The best way to figure that out what plane you’ll be on is to contact the airline directly, she said.
“Really, the best resource for the traveler is the airline,” she said.
Several other airlines that serve the Portland airport use the MAX 8 in their fleets — including American Airlines, Air Canada and United Airlines — but Simonds said they don’t fly that plane out of the airport.
Alaska Airlines, the biggest carrier at PDX, has 32 of the slightly larger 737 MAX 9 jets on order, but isn’t scheduled to receive the first one until June. The 737 MAX is a new series of planes, with only about 350 delivered out of more than 5,000 ordered.
An Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX 8 crashed Sunday, killing all 157 aboard, and a Lion Air MAX 8 flight crashed in Indonesia in October. In the last few days several airlines and many nations grounded the planes, and flight attendants unions in the U.S. were calling for the same Tuesday.
