Boeing 737 Max 9 grounding will cost $150M, Alaska Airlines says

Alaska Airlines said Thursday that the grounding of its fleet of Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft will cost the company about $150 million.

The fleet has been grounded since early this month after a door plug blew out of one Alaska aircraft in midair. Nobody was injured in the incident, but it sparked mass inspections that discovered loose bolts and other manufacturing defects in other airframes.

Alaska Airlines said the first flights of Max 9 aircraft are set to resume Friday, after the Federal Aviation Administration cleared the way for complete inspections on Wednesday. United Airlines has also been impacted by the grounding of the airframe.

The announcement of the financial hit came with the airlines’ quarterly earnings. Shares in the company are expected to return between $3 and $5. Its stock rose about 3.5 percent in early trading Thursday.

The company said growth was previously anticipated to be higher for the upcoming quarter, but “given the grounding, and the potential for future delivery delays, the Company expects capacity growth to be at or below the lower end of this range.”

Alaska Airlines CEO Ben Minicucci said he was “angry” with Boeing on Tuesday over the Max 9 issues.

“I’m more than frustrated and disappointed,” Minicucci told NBC News. “I am angry. This happened to Alaska Airlines. It happened to our guests and happened to our people. And — my demand on Boeing is what are they going to do to improve their quality programs in-house.”