Southwest Airlines pilots don’t expect Boeing 737 Max back until February

The Boeing 737 Max won’t return to service at Southwest Airlines until February at the earliest, the union that represents the airline’s pilots said Monday. That would be a month later than the carrier currently expects. Boeing is scrambling to finish software changes and put them in front of govt regulators for review to get the manufacturer’s bestselling plane flying again. Boeing has estimated it would receive this approval in Q4, but regulators say they don’t have a firm timeline. Southwest said Monday: “We continue to assess return to service timing based on information from Boeing and FAA but do not currently have a target date that we are working toward.” An airline spokeswoman said the carrier took the planes out of its schedule until Jan 5 based on the information it has now. <br/>