Boeing 737 MAX deliveries to Chinese airlines are now a step closer thanks to a report from the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC).
Reuters has reviewed the 737 MAX evaluation report that was published by CAAC on April 14, 2023. Chinese airlines would have been informed of the report, enabling them to start accepting aircraft deliveries whenever they wish to, the journal claimed, citing a person with knowledge of the situation.
“With respect to China, we’ve been working diligently to support our customers there as they return their 737 MAX fleets to service,” said David Calhoun, President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Boeing, in his address to shareholders on April 18, 2023, at the company’s annual shareholders meeting.
45 of the 95 737 MAX airplanes shipped to Chinese airlines, according to Calhoun, are currently in use. Boeing has observed “encouraging progress” as a result of the CAAC “releasing the 737 Aircraft Evaluation Report, which is an important step in that process.” In the end, Calhoun said, “our customers will decide when they are ready to take delivery of their airplanes, and we’ll be there to support them.”
Although China was the first nation to ground the Boeing 737 MAX, the plane’s return was not at all publicized.
Following the type’s second fatal accident in a matter of months, the CAAC was among the first civil aviation authority to ground the aircraft. In March 2019, a Boeing 737 MAX-8 belonging to Ethiopian Airlines crashed not long after taking off from Addis Abeba Bole International Airport. Several minutes after taking off from Soekarno-Hatta International Airport (CGK) in October 2018, a Lion Air aircraft of the same type had crashed into the water.
In January 2023, over four years after the CAAC stopped the model, China Southern Airlines resumed 737 MAX flights. achieving this as the first airline in China. 44 Boeing 737 MAXs are now in use in the nation, and 11 airlines are operating them, according to statistics from ch-aviation.com.
According to statistics from ch-aviation.com, 261 of the type are either in storage, undergoing maintenance, or have not yet been delivered. According to Calhoun’s same presentation to Boeing’s shareholders, Boeing most recently acknowledged that a supplier-side problem could cause severe 737 MAX supply delays, impacting up to 9,000 airline seats during the approaching summer travel season.
According to the CEO of the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM), “as we shared last week, our fuselage supplier informed us that a non-standard manufacturing process was used on two fittings in the aft fuselage section of certain 737 airplanes.”
Up to 752 aircraft may be affected since the 737 MAX-7, MAX-8, and MAX-10 were manufactured using a non-standard procedure over the course of the last four years. The issue didn’t affect the MAX-9.
