KANSAS CITY, Mo. — After hearing about the grounding of all Boeing 737 Max 8 and 9 jets, Southwest passenger Susan Stambaugh said she was a little worried.
Southwest is one of the airlines that flies the 737 Max 8 jets. The airline had to assign new planes to those flights after the grounding was ordered on those jets Wednesday.
“We were not extremely happy at that point,” Stambaugh said. “We were fearful that maybe we would be one of the groups that was grounded but no, we were able to go.”
Stambaugh is with the Great Bend High School choir, which, comprised of 60 students and other chaperons, was heading to D.C. to sing.
Stambaugh said adjustments would’ve been made if their flight was canceled, but they’d rather be safe.
“A lot of the parents and kids were worried about that jet after having seen some of the things that have been on the news,” Stambaugh said. “We figured you always like to think people know what they're doing, so if it's grounded, it should be.”
Diane Schafer was also heading to D.C. for different reasons. She also agreed on the grounding, stating safety was a top priority.
“I feel above all that being safe is number one and we'll let the investigators figure out what happened, and we'll just kind of go from there and learn from this and hopefully it'll never happen again,” Schafer said. “People are going to be frustrated because their flights are getting delayed or getting rerouted and everything, but no, life can be spared by taking shortcuts because people are inconvenienced and I feel like most people understand that.”
Right now it’s uncertain how long those jets will remain grounded.
According to airport data, the 737 Max 8 jets accounted for roughly 1.7 percent of departures from KCI in March.
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