FYI: Kayak lets you exclude the Boeing 737 Max 9 jet from flight search results

• Travel booking site Kayak has a feature that lets users filter their searches by aircraft model.
• Users can use the feature to filter out the Boeing 737 Max 9, which the FAA recently grounded.
• Other booking sites like Google Flights and Expedia often display aircraft models in search results.

Travelers may be more cautious about what aircraft they travel on in light of the FAA's recent grounding of the Boeing 737 Max 9. The announcement came after a piece of the fuselage tore off a Max 9 operated by Alaska Airlines.

And while Alaska Airlines and United Airlines — which both operate the Max 9 in the United States — are canceling hundreds of flights per day, nervous travelers can also take steps to avoid the aircraft when they book their next flight.

For example, the travel booking site Kayak has a feature that allows users to filter their searches by aircraft model. Kayak first introduced the feature back in 2019 following an Ethiopian Airlines crash that killed 157 people involving the Boeing 737 Max 8 — a slightly smaller version of the Max 9. 

At the time, a representative for Kayak told Business Insider that the company had received feedback to make Kayak's filters more "granular." 

"We are releasing that enhancement this week and are committed to providing our customers with all the information they need to travel with confidence."

Other travel booking sites like Expedia and Google Flights often display the aircraft model in the search results. 

The FAA said in a post on its website that the Max 9 will remain grounded until operators conduct inspections on about 171 aircraft worldwide. It also noted in a separate post on X that the required inspections would take between four to eight hours to complete per aircraft.

In the meantime, some travelers are preemptively canceling flights on the Max 9 that are scheduled weeks away. "I don't care if they inspect and repair the entire fleet before then. I'm done with the Max," Jorge López-Quintana, a traveler in New York City who canceled his Alaska Airlines flight in late February, told the Washington Post.

A representative for Boeing told BI the company had no further comment.