Cost of Alaska Airlines Grounding of 737 Arliners Set at $150 Million

Alaska Airlines says the cost of grounding many of its 737-Max airliners for safety inspections will cost a lot of money, and set back the airline's growth.

 The airline says costs will be at least $150 million.

  January 5th, a 737 Max 9 headed to Ontario, CA from Portland had to return to PDX and make an emergency landing after a door cover blew off in flight, taking a big chunk of the fuselage with it. Later inspections showed potentially loose bolts that failed to keep the door cover in place.

Numerous planes were grounded for safety inspections, disrupting a large number of Alaska flights. Fortunately, no one was seriously hurt in the incident.

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Most of the planes have been grounded since the incident, Federal investigators approved on Wednesday a safety inspection plan that if followed, will allow the 737's to return to the skies. However, Alaska says the grounding will likely cost the airline at least $150 million, and slow the growth of the company significantly.

According to Yahoo! Finance:

"Alaska detailed the financial fallout from the Boeing safety issue while reporting fourth-quarter financial results.

Earlier this week, United — the only U.S. carrier besides Alaska to operate the Max 9 — said it expects to lose money in the first quarter because of the grounding."

This is compounded by the airline receiving fewer planes from Boeing than ordered and expected, due to ongoing production problems with the aerospace giant. Alaska hopes to have all 65 of the 737s back in the air sometime in February.