American Airlines plans to return the Boeing 737 Max for passenger flights by the end of the year.
Ason Jason Redmond / AFP / Getty Images
A Boeing 737 MAX, piloted by Federal Aviation Administration (FAAA) Administrator Steve Dixon, landed on September 30, 2020 after an evaluation flight at Boeing Field The Area in Seattle, Washington. (Photo by Jason Redmond / Photo by Getty Images)
Return-to-service dates are “very dependent” on acceptance from the Federal Aviation Administration, the airline said Sunday. Max has landed worldwide since March 2019, with two crashes in which 364 people were killed.
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American said that after its certification, it will be phased into the 7 737 Max, starting once a day with a 7 737 Max flight between Miami and New York, starting from December to January.
“We remain in touch with the FAA and Boeing regarding the certification process and we will continue to update our plans based on how the aircraft is certified,” the company said in a statement.
The new slate of flights will be available for booking as early as October 24 and customers will be made aware that they will be flying on Max, the airline said.
The announcement comes after Americans announced they would cut 9,000 jobs after calls for more coronavirus federal aid failed. The airline is also expected to report earnings on October 22. The company lost 3 billion in the first half of the year as the coronavirus epidemic took its toll on the airlines industry.
In early October, the FAAA released a draft of the proposed pilot training for the Max – one of half a dozen procedural steps the agency had taken, which would need to be completed before the airline could give final approval for re-flight. . On Friday, the EU Aviation Safety Agency confirmed that it was also coming close to giving a clear-cut. But it will take more than a month to complete the final approval.
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