American Airlines and Southwest Airlines will extend their schedules without the Boeing 737 MAX through early March 2020, indicating they do not expect FAA to approve the grounded model’s return before year-end 2019. “We have removed the MAX through Feb. 8, 2020 to offer reliability to our operation and stability for our customers,” Southwest said Nov. 8.

Boeing expects to resume delivering 737 Max jets to airlines in December, before the jet carries passengers again


Undelivered Boeing 737 Max planes in a Boeing property in Seattle in August. David Ryder/Getty Images
  • Boeing said on Monday that it expected to resume delivering 737 Max jets to airlines in December.
  • The deliveries would begin after the plane receives primary certification from the Federal Aviation Administration but before it is fully cleared to fly again, a new Wall Street Journal report said.
  • The plane maker said it completed a simulator test of the plane's redesigned software with the FAA, a crucial step toward certification.
Boeing said on Monday that it expected to resume delivering 737 Max jets in December, before the plane is approved to fly passengers again.

Boeing is working to get a fix to the troubled plane - as well as a pilot-training requirement - certified by the Federal Aviation Administration. The plane maker is looking to have pilots start delivering jets to airline customers after the plane's main certification is complete but before that training is finalized, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Boeing has faced increasing pressure as it halted deliveries while production continued. Though in April it cut its production rate to 42 planes per month from 52, it has had difficulty finding places to store the completed but undeliverable planes.

Resuming deliveries would also help Boeing weather mounting financial pressure. The company has sold only a handful of Max jets since Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crashed in March, and it's concerned because of dwindling wide-body orders partly stemming from the Trump administration's trade war with China.

Though Boeing has maintained since the summer that it would be able to get the Max flying again by the fourth quarter, American Airlines and Southwest Airlines recently pulled the plane from their schedules until early March.

Despite several recent setbacks, including being required to resubmit documentation outlining changes to the Max's flight computer, Boeing last week cleared a step in the certification process following a series of successful simulator tests with the FAA, The Journal reported.

However, even if the plane is certified by the end of the year, the pilot training isn't expected to be approved until several weeks later, following a public comment period, The Journal reported. Until the training is approved and implemented, airlines would not be allowed to use the planes to carry passengers.

Even so, airlines are anxious to resume deliveries. Operators will need to service the stored planes and inspect jets before returning them to service. By beginning deliveries before the training is approved, Boeing and airlines would have some extra time to get the planes ready.

Boeing's stock was trading about 5% higher on Monday afternoon following the announcement.

Boeing has been preparing to aggressively deliver jets, recruiting recently retired aircraft technicians to help prepare stored planes for delivery flights, an initiative first reported by Business Insider.

The 737 Max, the latest version of Boeing's best-selling plane, has been grounded since March after crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia killed 346 people.

Investigations into the two crashes suggest that an automated system called MCAS, or the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, erroneously engaged, forcing the planes' noses to point down, and that pilots were unable to regain control of the aircraft.

The system could be activated by a single sensor reading. In both crashes, the sensors are thought to have failed, sending erroneous data to the flight computer and, without a redundant check in place, triggering the automated system.


MCAS was designed to compensate for the 737 Max having larger engines than previous 737 generations. The larger engines could cause the plane's nose to tip upward, leading to a stall - in that situation, the system could automatically point the nose down to negate the effect of the engine size.
Boeing details steps needed to get grounded Max jet flying


FILE - In this April 10, 2019, file photo a Boeing 737 MAX 8 airplane being built for India-based Jet Airways, takes off on a test flight at Boeing Field in Seattle. Boeing hopes to resume deliveries of its 737 Max jet to airlines in December and win regulatory approval to restart commercial service with the plane in January. Boeing shares rose in midday trading Monday, Nov. 11. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File)(ASSOCIATED PRESS)

and an area where Boeing failed when it introduced the plane in 2017. The timetable that the company laid out Monday would allow it to generate cash by delivering planes even before the Federal Aviation Administration approves new training material for pilots.

Boeing said it has demonstrated changes to the plane during sessions with the FAA in a flight simulator. It still must show regulators those changes during one or more certification flights.

Boeing's expectations around the timing of the Max's return have proven too optimistic many times before. Even after the FAA approves a training regimen, airlines will need time to retrain pilots, and they plan to conduct flights - likely with executives and reporters on board - to demonstrate to the public that the plane is safe.

Two big U.S. customers - Southwest and American - say they don't expect the Max to carry passengers until early March - a year after the plane was grounded following crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia killed 346 people.

Boeing has continued to pump out about 42 Max jets a month at its factory in the Seattle area, but it has been burning through cash because it can't deliver those planes and get paid by the airlines.


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Boeing says 737 MAX expected to resume flying in January


These Southwest Airlines planes, seen on a tarmac in California, were among the Boeing 737 MAX aircraft grounded after two fatal crashes; Boeing now hopes the model will be cleared to fly in January 2020, while some airlines are aiming for March (AFP Photo/Mark RALSTON)

New York (AFP) - Boeing on Monday said it expects the 737 MAX airplane, which was grounded after two crashes killed 346 people, to resume flying in January, delaying its return by one month.

In a statement, the group said it still hopes to receive certification next month from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), allowing it to resume MAX deliveries to airline customers before the end of the year.

"In parallel, we are working towards final validation of the updated training requirements, which must occur before the MAX returns to commercial service, and which we now expect to begin in January," Boeing said.

It had previously planned for the model to resume flying in December.

The new timetable was well received by the market, with Boeing shares increasing 4.7 percent by around 2:30 pm (1930 GMT) on the New York Stock Exchange.

The 737 MAX planes have been grounded globally since mid-March, following the deadly Lion Air crash of October 2018 and the Ethiopian Airlines crash in March this year.

The grounding has dragged on far beyond initial expectations as Boeing had to upgrade systems and faced questions from regulators and politicians over the plane.

Southwest Airlines and American Airlines on Friday pushed back their timeframe again for resuming flights on the 737 MAX until early March.

Southwest, the largest MAX customer at the time of the grounding with 34 of the aircraft, is currently doing without 175 flights per day out of a total of up to 4,000 while the planes are out of commission.

Companies also need to take into account the time needed to train pilots and install modified software on the aircraft before they can re-enter regular service.

Boeing said Monday it has completed the first of five milestones it must meet before returning the MAX to service: a multi-day simulator evaluation with the FAA to "ensure the overall software system performs its intended function."

- Major crisis for Boeing -

The group said it still needs to run a separate, multi-day simulator session with airline pilots to "assess human factors and crew workload under various test conditions," before FAA pilots conduct a certification flight of the final updated software.

Boeing has notably changed the aircraft's Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS), an anti-stall mechanism that pilots in both fatal crashes had struggled to control as the jets careered downwards.

Boeing will then submit to the FAA all the necessary materials to support software certification.

The final key step before the resumption of commercial flights is an evaluation by a multi-regulatory body to validate training requirements.

After this, Boeing said, a report will be released for a public comment period, followed by final approval of the training.

"At each step of this process Boeing has worked closely with the FAA and other regulators," the group said.

The 737 MAX crisis is one of the most serious in Boeing's 103-year history, and has already cost the company tens of billions of dollars, triggering multiple investigations by US authorities and a cascade of complaints from victims' families.

Driven by a 67 percent drop in commercial aircraft deliveries in the third quarter, Boeing's sales plunged 20.5 percent to $19.98 billion and its profits halved to $1.17 billion.

And while Boeing hopes for a resumption of commercial 737 MAX flights in early 2020, uncertainty still looms.

The European Union Aviation Safety Agency had estimated in early November that it did not expect a resumption of MAX flights in Europe before the first quarter of 2020 as it conducts its own test flights, assesses pilot training requirements and coordinates with EU member states.

The FAA, which has come in for widespread criticism for entrusting certification of important systems of the aircraft to Boeing, has promised a thorough review before certification.

Pilot training remains a contentious point, with Europe and Canada requiring training on flight simulators while American pilots will only have to go through faster computer-based training.