Tag: 737 MAX

FAA Says Agency Must Ensure Adequate Safety Measures Before 737 Max Production Can Expand

Reuters reports, “The head of the Federal Aviation Administration said Tuesday the agency must ensure the planemaker’s safety processes are adequate before it will lift its 737 MAX production cap. FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker said he raised the issue with Boeing’s new chief executive Kelly Ortberg and wants to ensure the planemaker follows through on its quality turnaround plan.”
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FAA’s Enhanced Oversight of Boeing to Continue “Indefinitely”

Reuters reports, “The Federal Aviation Administration’s tougher oversight of Boeing will continue indefinitely, the agency’s outgoing head said on Friday, nearly a year after a door panel missing four key bolts flew off a new Alaska Airlines 737 MAX 9 in mid-air. The Jan. 5, 2024 incident prompted FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker to cap production at 38 737 MAX planes per month and temporarily ground 170 airplanes. The incident exposed serious safety issues at the U.S. planemaker and contributed to the departure of its then-CEO Dave Calhoun.”
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Elysian Aircraft Aims to Launch Electric Plane by 2033

Aerospace America reports Elysian Aircraft, a Netherlands-based company, is planning to launch a “90-passenger, prop-driven electric plane that would have a range of 800 kilometers” by 2033. The design includes a “fossil fuel turbogenerator in its tail cone to recharge the batteries and power the motors driving the propellers in the event a plane was diverted or delayed.” The key feature is an “unusually wide wingspan” of 43 meters, allowing the batteries to be placed inside the wings, reducing fuselage weight.
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Boeing Revises Guidance for 737 Max Inspections

The New York Times reports, “Federal regulators on Tuesday said Boeing was revising its instructions for how airlines should inspect its 737 Max 9, delaying the manufacturer’s effort to get the jet back in the air after a panel in one of the planes blew out during a flight late last week.” The Federal Aviation Administration said the planemaker “would change the instructions it had released on Monday based on feedback, but the agency did not provide more details.” The FAA said, “Upon receiving the revised version of instructions from Boeing, the F.A.A. will conduct a thorough review. The safety of the flying public, not speed, will determine the timeline for returning the Boeing 737-9 Max to service.”
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Boeing Says 737 MAX Deliveries on Schedule

Aviation Week reported that The Boeing Company says it is “on track” to reach its projected 2023 delivery of 400-450 737 MAX aircraft, with company CFO Brian West saying that he “expects monthly delivery numbers to snap back quickly following the recent slowdown related to non-conforming parts.”
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Air India Order Includes 737 MAX, 787, and 777X Aircraft

Reuters reported that Air India “is close to a deal to order more than 200 Boeing jets including 190 narrowbody 737 MAX and 30 widebody 787s – part of an historic fleet shake-up roughly split with Boeing’s European rival Airbus, industry sources said on Friday.” The deal is “also expected to include an unspecified number of Boeing 777X long-range jets, they added.” Airbus is separately “moving towards a deal with Air India including at least 200 of its A320-family narrowbody jets as well as dozens of larger A350s, industry sources said.” Both The Boeing Company and Airbus declined to comment, but the orders split between the two major aircraft makers would reportedly cost tends of billions of dollars as the Tata Group-owned airline looks to create a renaissance for the carrier.
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Supply Disruptions Threaten Second Half for Aerospace Companies

Reuters reports that major aerospace companies “are sounding the alarm on their supply chains as shortages ranging from raw materials to castings or semiconductor chips pressure earnings and crimp the industry’s ability to capitalize on roaring travel demand.” Airbus “cut its full-year jet delivery forecast by 3% and slowed a planned increase in factory production, noting pressure on the engine sector.” The Boeing Company “cut estimates for 737 MAX deliveries this year and warned that supply-chain constraints had capped its ability to ramp up production despite ‘significant’ demand.”
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Boeing Announces Return of MAX BBJ

Aviation Week reports that The Boeing Company “has announced the service debut of the first 737 MAX-based BBJ 737-8 as well as the first new order for the corporate variant since the return of the MAX to commercial service in 2020.”
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Southwest Airlines Exercises Option for 34 Additional 737 MAX 7s

Aviation International News reports that Southwest Airlines “has exercised options on another 34 Boeing 737 Max 7s, bringing its firm order total for the smallest Max variant to 234, the company reported Tuesday in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing.” The airline “said it expects to take delivery of all 34 of the jets next year, bringing its 2022 Max 7 delivery total to 64.”
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China Deploys Zhurong Rover on Mars

Reuters reported that China’s Zhurong rover “drove down the ramp of its landing capsule on Saturday and onto the surface of Mars, making China the first nation to orbit, land and deploy a land vehicle on its inaugural mission to the Red Planet.” The rover “drove down to the surface of Mars at 10:40 a.m. Beijing time (0240 GMT), according to the rover’s official Chinese social media account.” Zhurong “will move and stop in slow intervals, with each interval estimated to be just 10 metres (33 feet) over three days, according to the official China Space News.”
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Sources: Boeing Looks to Increase 737 MAX Output in Fall 2022

Reuters reported that The Boeing Company “has drawn up preliminary plans for a fresh sprint in 737 MAX output to as many as 42 jets a month in fall 2022, industry sources said, in a bid to extend its recovery from overlapping safety and COVID-19 crises.” The plans “would lift output beyond an early 2022 target of 31 a month, which the sources said Boeing aims to reach in March.” Boeing “hopes to speed monthly output from single digits now to about 26 a month at the end of 2021 at its Renton factory near Seattle, two of the sources said.” The news “comes as demand for medium-haul jets such as the 737 MAX and competing Airbus A320neo begins to recover from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, boosted by widespread vaccinations, especially in the busy U.S. domestic market.”
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FAA Utilizes ADS-B Flight Data from Aireon to Follow All 737 MAX Flights

Bloomberg reported that the FAA “is using a network of satellites” to follow all Boeing 737 Max “flights around the world,” as the agency monitors “the plane after its 20-month grounding.” The network, “provided by Virginia-based Aireon LLC,” is “capable of tracking planes in even the most remote regions as if they were under surveillance by local radars.” Aireon is watching “Max flights for unusual events, such as rapid descents, said Vincent Capezzuto, the company’s chief technology officer.” It began monitoring 737 Max flights January 29.
Full Story (Bloomberg)

Flydubai to Return 737 MAXs to Service April 8

Bloomberg reports that Flydubai said that it plans to return its Boeing 737 MAX jets to service April 8. The airline “idled 14 Boeing Max jets in March 2019, when the model was grounded worldwide in the wake of a second deadly crash in five months. The low-cost carrier has ordered 251 Max jets as it pursues an aggressive regional expansion.”
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Chinese Airlines Give Indication of Future of 737 Max

FlightGlobal reports that China Eastern Airlines expects that deliveries of the Boeing 737 MAX will resume from 2023 – “even while it works with the airframer to return the aircraft to service.” According to fleet plans included in its full-year results for 2020, the airline indicated that it expects to introduce 46 737 MAX aircraft in 2023. The variant of the aircraft was not included. However, “the carrier had previously disclosed in its 2019 annual results that it expected to take up to 46 737 Max aircraft between 2020 and 2021, but that these had to be deferred indefinitely following the type’s global grounding.” Compatriot Air China likely will not take on any 737 MAX aircraft in the near future, but Air China is operating 16 737 Max 8s and has ordered another 13. Shenzhen Airlines “has another 10 examples on order, and five in storage, according to Cirium fleets data.”
Full Story (FlightGlobal)

Ryanair CEO Expects FAA to Certify Boeing 737 Max 200 This Week

Aviation International News reports that Ryanair hopes the FAA and the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) “will finalize the licensing process of the Boeing 737 Max 200 in the coming days, paving the way for Europe’s largest LCC to finally take delivery of its first example in April.” Ryanair Group CEO Michael O’Leary said during an online press conference Wednesday, “We hope that the [Max] 8-200 will be certified by the FAA sometime later this week and then by EASA later this week or early next week.”
Full Story (Aviation International News)

FAA Launches Audit into How Minor Design Change Led to Electrical Issue in Some 737 MAX Aircraft

The Wall Street Journal reports that the FAA said Thursday that it has initiated an audit into how a minor design change in the production of Boeing 737 MAX aircraft contributed to a potential electrical issue that led to the grounding of 109 737 MAX aircraft. The agency said regarding the audit that it will assess The Boeing Company’s “process for making minor design changes across its product line, with the goal of identifying areas where the company can improve.”
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FAA Asks Boeing for New Analysis of Electrical Grounding Problem on 737 MAXs

Reuters reports that the FAA has “asked The Boeing Company to supply fresh analysis and documentation showing numerous 737 MAX subsystems would not be affected by electrical grounding issues first flagged in three areas of the jet in April, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters.” The “electrical problems have suspended nearly a quarter of its 737 MAX fleet,” and the call for additional analysis “injects new uncertainty over the timing of when Boeing’s best-selling jetliner would be cleared to fly by” the FAA. The “production-related electrical grounding problem” was first found “in a backup power control unit situated in the cockpit on some recently built airplanes.” The problem “was then found in two other places on the flight deck, including the storage rack where the affected control unit is kept and the instrument panel facing the pilots.
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Aeromexico Buys 24 737s, Four Dreamliners from Boeing

Reuters reported that Grupo Aeromexico “has agreed to purchase 24 of The Boeing Company’s 737-8 and B737-9 MAX planes, and four 787-9 Dreamliners, as part of a deal that should yield an estimated $2 billion in savings, the Mexican airline said on Friday.” The carrier “said that it had managed to negotiate better conditions in some long-term maintenance for its existing fleet and leasing contracts.” The price of the aircraft was not disclosed.
Full Story (New York Times)

FAA Orders Operators to Test Switches On 9,300 Boeing 737 Planes for Possible Failures

Reuters reports that on Thursday, The FAA “issued a directive to operators of all Boeing Co 737 series airplanes to conduct inspections to address possible failures of cabin altitude pressure switches.” The order, which “covers 2,502 U.S.-registered airplanes and 9,315 airplanes worldwide,” requires operators “to conduct repetitive tests of the switches and replace them if needed.” The FAA indicated that malfunctioning switches “could result in the cabin altitude warning system not activating if the cabin altitude exceeds 10,000 feet (3,050 m), at which point oxygen levels could become dangerously low.”
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