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By Vanni Gibertini
CAAC does not provide date for 737 MAX recertification in China
The Boeing 737 MAX has obtained clearance from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to resume commercial flight in the US, but this does not mean that its troubles are over. In fact, while in the past an FAA approval was almost automatically endorsed by other regulators around the world to allow business operations almost anywhere on earth, some regulators have decided that they will need to run their own test before allowing the type of aircraft return to your skies. after problems with the FAA’s relationship with Boeing arose during the investigation of the accident that led to the grounding of the Boeing 737 MAX in March 2019.
Despite the fact that the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) in Europe, as well as Transport Canada, have clearly stated that the aircraft will be able to return to service sometime around late 2020 and early 2021, the road appears long before arrives. It is possible to see in the air the 97 Boeing 737 MAX owned by Chinese carriers. The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) has not yet released any estimates on when the recertification process can be completed.
On November 19, the Chinese regulator stated on state television that all Boeing 737 MAXs will be returned to service when the three key requirements set out in October are met, Flightglobal.com reported. These are:
- All changes made to the aircraft must be approved, safe and reliable;
- All pilots must be fully trained; Y
- It is necessary to identify a clear result of the investigation of the two accidents that led to the global grounding.
The two accidents are the Lion Air flight crash in Indonesia in November 2018 that killed 189 people and the Ethiopian Airlines flight crash in March 2019 that claimed 157 lives.
In October, CAAC chief Feng Zhenglin told reporters that as long as the 737 MAX met these criteria, China would be “happy” to lift its base.
The approval of the Chinese authorities is critical to the success of Boeing’s problematic model for several reasons.
China was the first country to ground the Boeing 737 MAX after the two accidents. But more importantly, the Chinese market is arguably the most important in today’s aviation landscape. In 2015 and 2016, China was the most important export market for Boeing, CNN reports, but there have been no orders from China in the past two years, and the Seattle-based company is eager to move the score.
China has recently overtaken the US as the world’s largest domestic aviation market, with six of the 20 busiest routes in the world being Chinese domestic routes. There are also more than a dozen operators operating domestically in China, each eager to serve a market that until 2019 was growing at almost 10% annually.
The CAAC has reported that in October internal traffic reached 50.3 million passengers, 88% of the level reached in 2019. This despite the fact that air traffic was almost paralyzed in February due to the COVID-19 pandemic that forced the government to impose lockdown measures that prevented millions of people from leaving their homes for weeks.
Vanni fell in love with commercial aviation during his undergraduate studies in Statistics at the University of Bologna, when he prepared his thesis on the effects of deregulation in the aviation markets of the United States and Europe. He then continued his passion by earning a Master of Air Transport Management at Cranfield University in the UK, followed by holding various management positions in various emerging companies in Europe (Jet2, SkyEurope, Silverjet). After moving to Canada, he was IATA’s Business Development Manager for nine years before turning to his other passion: sports writing.
