Crisis jet can fly again: US air traffic control approves the Boeing 737 Max

Wednesday 18 November 2020

In March 2019, air traffic control authorities withdrew the Boeing 737 Max: 346 people had already died in two accidents. Only 20 months later the airline solved the control problems.

The take-off ban for the Boeing 737 Max was lifted after more than a year and a half. One of the prerequisites for this is the installation of new control software on the aircraft, as announced by the US Air Traffic Control Authority FAA. The crisis jet was withdrawn from circulation in March 2019 in two accidents with a total of 346 deaths. The main cause of the accidents was a faulty control program. Boeing actually wanted to fix the problems after the first crash. However, other glitches have occurred repeatedly, so much so that it eventually took about 20 months for the FAA to lift the ban on flying the 737 Max.

The European Aviation Authority EASA had already announced in mid-October that the 737 Max was again sufficiently safe and therefore signaled its approval of a new registration. Experts also expect European supervisors and other international authorities to quickly give the green light following the FAA’s decision. In addition to EASA, supervisors in Canada and Brazil had already collaborated with the FAA on parts of the re-authorization process. It will take a while for the 737 Max to fully reboot. First, final maintenance work and pilot training must be completed.

The 737 Max disaster also put Boeing under severe financial pressure. Airbus’ arch-rival has been unable to deliver the 737 Max – its best-selling model until the crashes – to customers since spring 2019 due to flight bans. Numerous orders were canceled and Boeing incurred billions in additional costs. In the three months up to the end of September, the fourth consecutive quarterly loss occurred.

Drastic austerity measures

The group is reacting to the difficult financial situation with drastic cost-cutting measures and intends to reduce the number of employees to around 130,000 by the end of 2021. For comparison: in early 2020 Boeing still had around 160,000 employees.

While the re-registration of the 737 Max is a great relief for Boeing, the US airline giant continues to face extremely difficult times. The corona pandemic, which has paralyzed much of air traffic and put many airlines in financial distress, is likely to have a significantly longer burden. The group expects a drought that will permanently dampen demand for aircraft. Boeing predicts it will take around three years to return to 2019 levels. It will take five or more years for the aviation industry to revert to its long-term growth trend.