PORTLAND, Oregon — There are flight delays and cancellations at Portland International Airport (PDX) and across the country on Monday after federal officials temporarily grounded some Boeing 737 MAX 9 jetliners for inspections over the weekend.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) grounded the aircraft on Saturday after a door plug blew out on an Alaska Airlines jetliner shortly after takeoff from PDX on Friday, leaving a hole in the side of the fuselage. The plane made an emergency landing at PDX and no one was seriously hurt.
The FAA's emergency order impacts about 171 planes in total.
There have been 24 total flight cancellations so far at PDX on Monday, according to FlightAware. Nearly all of those cancellations, 21, were Alaska Airlines flights. As of 3 p.m., 18 planes with the airline carrier have been delayed. United, which also uses MAX 9 jetliners, had three canceled flights and eight that were delayed at PDX.
FlightAware's data doesn't specify the cause of the delays and cancellations, or whether the grounding affected scheduling.
PDX isn't the only airport in the Pacific Northwest that's being impacted. In Washington state, there were 81 flight cancellations at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport on Monday morning. Of those, 77 of the flights are operated by Alaska Airlines. Hundreds of flights out of SEA were canceled over the weekend.
On Saturday, Alaska Airlines canceled more than 100 flights nationwide by midday, or 15% of its Saturday schedule, FlightAware reported. Plane inspections resulted in about 60 cancellations for United.
A family visiting Maui from Spokane, Washington told NBC affiliate KHQ that their flight Saturday morning was initially delayed and later canceled.
"I went to check my Alaska app to see it was the same plane, the 737-9 MAX," Gorka said. "So I was like, that might shake things," Paul Gorka told KHQ.
He said the cheapest hotel he found near the airport was for $500 and he ended up booking a more expensive flight home with Delta.
According to KHQ, Alaska Airlines said Gorka will be reimbursed for the difference in fare for his new flight and the hotel.
Alaska Airlines' CEO said inspections of the 737 MAX 9 jetliners could take days to complete. The required inspections take four to eight hours per aircraft. The aircraft makes up a fifth of Alaska Airlines' 314 planes.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.