United Airlines to extend Boeing 737 Max grounding through November

July 12 (UPI) -- United Airlines extended its grounding of Boeing 737 Max aircraft through early November amid continued testing of the beleaguered passenger jet, the Chicago-based company announced Friday.

United, which stopped using the aircraft in April, said the grounding will go on until at least Nov. 3. The airline initially intended to start using the 737 Max again in July.

The company said it has had to cancel dozens of flights each day because of the grounding, but has taken "extraordinary steps to protect our customers' travel plans."

They anticipate canceling 40 to 45 flights each day in July, 60 flights a day in August, 70 a day in September and 95 a day in October. October will see 2,900 cancellations over the entire month.

"We are continuing to work through the schedule to try and swap and upgauge aircraft to mitigate the disruption caused by the grounding of the Max," United Airlines said in a statement. "We continue to automatically book affected customers on alternate flights."

U.S. airlines began canceling flights using the Boeing 737 Max 8 and Max 9 during the spring after Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crashed on March 10. The crash came five months after another 737 Max crash in Indonesia, Lion Air Flight 610. Together, the crashes killed nearly 350 people.

Individual companies and countries grounded the planes after investigators linked the crashes to the aircraft model's Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System.