Horizon cancels more flights

Horizon Air canceled more flights Thursday and today as it continues to inspect planes after similar ones experienced landing gear problems during flights in Europe.

Systemwide, the Seattle-based airline canceled 154 flights Thursday and 121 for today, Horizon Air’s media department confirmed. Alaska Airlines was scheduled to pick up some of those flights — 16 on Thursday and 18 on Friday. It’s unclear whether any of those flights will be to or from Spokane.

Spokane’s situation was worse Thursday than on Wednesday. Fifteen Spokane arrivals and 15 Spokane departures were canceled, up from 17 flights total Wednesday.

Horizon Air spokeswoman Erika Cordero said that 28 Spokane flights were expected to be canceled today.Horizon had initially hoped to complete all its Q400 aircraft inspections by the end of the day Wednesday but ran into problems and announced late in the day that inspections would continue Thursday.

“We were waiting for the Transport Canada air worthiness directive,” Cordero said, explaining that directive was needed to know what to inspect on the planes. The inspections are a precautionary measure recommended by the Canadian manufacturer after two Q400 Bombardier turboprop planes recently experienced landing gear failures in Europe.

Only 19 Horizon Q400s with higher numbers of flight hours are included in the full inspections, but its remaining 14 planes will also be given ground visual inspections, Cordero said.