UA finally canceled her flight Monday night about 8pm shortly after I got off the phone with the 1K line. I called the 1K line and had a nice conversation, but the agent really had little to offer as all flights on 1/9 showed fully booked to both LAX and SNA. I noted that the first 1/9 departure to LAX (5:22am) had switched to a 767-400 but both it and the 7:20am showed fully booked. As Monday (1/8) progressed with no changes to her flight or its scheduled equipment, I used the UA web site to add her to the standby list of an earlier departure (7:20am) on 1/9 then scheduled on a 757-200. I was also hoping to see MAX 9 inspections that would allow the planes to return to the air. I obsessively checked her flight status for the last few days hoping to see equipment substitutions and looking at alternatives (other flights, SNA, etc). What a day.Mrs GeneDoc (1K) was scheduled to fly IAH LAX today (Tuesday 1/9) on a 737 MAX 9 at 9:35am.

Dodged so many bullets by being proactive and through sheer luck. I can't believe I actually managed to make it from San Francisco to Houston in only 7 hours and 20 minutes this afternoon, between the 737 MAX 9 cancellations and the storms in Houston. Given that United has found additional issues (loose bolts), and since they have only been doing inspections for 24 hours, there's plenty of room for this to expand in scope and consequences. Alaska even started their own inspections just hours after the incident (long before the FAA mandated inspections), returned some planes to service, then had to re-ground them, then go back and follow the specified FAA inspection protocols. No idea what the 'failure rate' (or lets just say 'discovery rate') is, but I was getting the feeling that initially, everyone seemed to think that inspections wouldn't find any/many issues on other planes, that this was likely a 'one-off' and all that was needed for return to service was a fairly quick 'n easy inspection. It seems likely (to me at least) that we are still in the early days of these inspections, and we're already hearing about more than a few instances - and a lack of consistency in where they're being found - all of which seem troubling. As more inspections are done and as the FAA/NTSB learns more every day, expectations could change. Even taking the loose bolt findings on some UA aircraft.Yes, but I think that expectation was before the additional reports of loose bolts started coming in. Looks like the airlines have been given the inspection procedure and have tentatively said the aircraft can return to service if they pass an inspection so could this mean aircraft can return to service soon.

As much I hate 737’s, this isn’t going to be the death of it. Something happened, but the loose bolts found on UA and AS are only related to the Max, or likely recent builds. My understanding is the 7M9's that have been found with loose bolts are more recent deliveries that haven't had the heavy maintenance checks which would have required exposing the plug behind the interior paneling, so the bolts are likely still in whatever state they came on delivery.can you imagine if every Ram 1500, F150, GM product was recalled ever built, because something happened on only recently built models? Maybe a poor example but a 172/182 or current examples of aircraft that are older than 737’s, currently still popular and doing just fine with modernization once in a while. If there was a systemic issue in the design where the bolts are becoming loose over time, it would have been identified multiple times over by now. Every one of the 737-900's would have undergone multiple heavy maintenance checks since being delivered over a decade ago which means the bolts/plug would have been inspected multiple times.

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