Alaska Airlines has offered passengers who were on the flight that suffered an exit plug blowout causing a rapid decompression and injuring several of those onboard have been offered free inflight snacks when they feel comfortable enough to step onboard one of the carrier’s planes.
The all-Boeing operator has grounded its entire fleet of the 737 MAX 9 variant, which shares the same exit door plug design as the roughly two-month-old aircraft that suffered the blowout last Friday, pending the results of continuing airworthiness inspections.
In the immediate aftermath of the accident, it has now been revealed that Alaska Airlines sent an email to the 171 passengers onboard Flight 1282, which was meant to fly from Portland to Ontario, California, with an offer to refund their full ticket costs and provide counselling services.
It has also been reported that Alaska Airlines made an upfront offer of $1,500 per passenger to cover immediate out-of-pocket expenses – or as the airline described it: “to assist with inconveniences”.
The payout is likely to be the very tip of the iceberg of any monetary compensation that passengers can expect to receive at some point in the future.
In addition, Alaska Airlines has told the lucky passengers from Flight 1282 to expect complimentary upgrades for more legroom and free inflight snacks on their future flight booking… once, of course, they feel confident enough to fly again.
Alaska Airlines has grounded all 65 of its MAX-9 jets until Saturday, January 13 at the earliest, resulting in between 110 and 150 canceled flights per day. The Seattle-based carrier is currently inspecting the exit plugs in line with instructions developed by Boeing.
Both Alaska and United Airlines have confirmed that they have found ‘loose hardware’ on some 737-9 exit plugs. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is still investigating the cause of the accident.
TOTH: Live and Let’s Fly
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