American Airlines cancels Boeing 737 MAX flights until Jan. 16

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - American Airlines Group Inc  said Wednesday it is extending cancellations of Boeing 737 MAX flights through Jan. 15 as regulators continue to extensively review proposed software changes to the grounded plane.

The largest U.S. airline, which had previously canceled about 140 flights a day through Dec. 3, said Wednesday it expects to gradually resume MAX flights starting Jan. 16.

American said it believes the software updates will lead to the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) “recertification of the aircraft later this year and resumption of commercial service in January 2020.”

The FAA said Wednesday it is “is following a thorough process, not a prescribed timeline, for returning the Boeing 737 Max to passenger service. The FAA will lift the aircraft’s prohibition order when it is deemed safe to do so.”

The fast-selling 737 MAX has been grounded worldwide since mid-March while Boeing updates flight control software at the center of two crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia that together killed 346 people within a span of five months.