FILE PHOTO: A worker from United attends to some customers during their check in process at Newark International airport in New Jersey , November 15, 2012. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz/File Photo

(Reuters) - United Continental Holdings Inc said on Monday it had pulled Boeing Co’s 737 MAX flights out of its schedule through early July, following similar moves by rivals American Airlines Group Inc and Southwest Airlines Co.

United, with 14 MAX jets, had largely avoided cancellations by servicing MAX routes with larger 777 or 787 aircraft.

But the airline’s president, Scott Kirby, warned last week that the strategy was costing it money and could not go on forever.

Boeing’s 737 MAX planes have been grounded worldwide since March after an Ethiopian Airlines jet crashed, killing all 157 aboard, just five months after a similar crash of Indonesia’s Lion Air flight.