The delivery of Boeing 737 MAX aircraft to Chinese airlines has advanced thanks to a report from the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC).
Reuters has seen the 737 MAX evaluation report that the CAAC released on April 14, 2023. The journal, citing a source with knowledge of the situation, claimed that Chinese airlines would have been provided with the report, enabling them to start accepting aircraft deliveries anytime they want to do so.
On April 18, 2023, President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Boeing David Calhoun delivered a speech to shareholders during the company’s annual shareholders meeting. He said, “With respect to China, we’ve been working diligently to support our customers there as they return their 737 MAX fleets to service.”
45 of the 95 737 MAX aircraft that were shipped to Chinese airlines, according to Calhoun, are currently in use. Boeing has noted “encouraging progress” following the CAAC’s release of the 737 Aircraft Evaluation Report, which is a crucial milestone in the process. “Ultimately, our customers will determine the timing of when they are ready to take delivery of their airplanes, and we’ll be there to support them,” Calhoun said.
Although China was the first nation to stop the Boeing 737 MAX, no announcement was made regarding the plane’s eventual return.
Following the second tragic accident involving the same type of aircraft in a short period of time, the CAAC was among the first civil aviation authority to ground the aircraft. A Boeing 737 MAX-8 operated by Ethiopian Airlines crashed in March 2019 not long after departure from Addis Ababa Bole International Airport. A Lion Air plane of the same type had crashed into the sea in October 2018 after taking off from Soekarno-Hatta International Airport (CGK) a few minutes earlier.
Nearly four years after the CAAC halted the model, China Southern Airlines started operating the 737 MAX in January 2023. the first airline in China to do so. Data from ch-aviation.com shows that 11 airlines are now using 44 active Boeing 737 MAXs in the nation.
According to statistics from ch-aviation.com, 261 of the type are either being maintained, have not yet been delivered, or are being stored. According to Calhoun’s same presentation to Boeing’s shareholders, Boeing most recently acknowledged that a supplier-side issue might cause severe 737 MAX supply delays, affecting up to 9,000 airline seats during the approaching summer travel season.
The CEO of the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) stated, “As we shared last week, our fuselage supplier notified 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 could be impacted because the 737 MAX-7, MAX-8, and MAX-10 were manufactured using this unconventional method. The issue has no impact on the MAX-9.
