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- Brazil’s Gol Linhas Aéreas carried out the first scheduled Boeing 737 Max flight with passengers since March 2019 on Wednesday.
- Flight 4104 departed Sao Paulo en route to Porto Alegre and arrived safely after climbing up to 38,000 feet.
- Gol has orders for 95 Boeing 737 Max planes and is proving to be the most eager of the world’s airlines to get the fleet flying again.
- Visit the Business Insider home page for more stories.
The Boeing 737 Max has successfully made its first commercial flight since March 2019.
Brazilian low-cost airline Gol Linhas Aéreas became the first airline to fly paying passengers on the Max in more than 20 months on Wednesday morning with the first flight taking off from São Paulo’s Guarulhos International Airport bound for Porto. Alegre in the south of Brazil.
The 8:20 am flight from Sao Paulo to Porto Alegre operating as Flight 4104 went off without a hitch, Flightradar 24 shows, with Gol’s second Boeing 737 Max making the flight down the coast in one hour and 16 minutes while reaching a maximum altitude of 38,000 feet.
Gol announced the flight on Monday, just two days ahead of schedule, outperforming the rest of the world’s airlines flying 737 Max jets. Flightradar 24 data for the aircraft, which is registered with PR-XMB, shows a series of test flights in Brazil in the days leading up to Wednesday’s revenue streak.
Brazil authorized the Boeing 737 Max to fly again on November 25, as Reuters reported, just a week after the Federal Aviation Administration approved the plane to fly again in the United States.
And Brazil are the only ones in the world to approve the return of the Max to the skies, although more are expected to follow suit in the coming months. The Canadian Press reports that approval is “imminent” with the nation’s two largest airlines, WestJet and Air Canada, among the current operators of the Max.
The 737 Max has found a home in Latin America with Gol just one of the airlines that fly the Max in the region along with Aerolineas Argentinas, Copa Airlines and Aeroméxico, according to data from Cirium, with an order for 95 of the Max 8 variant. . Only seven aircraft arrived at the airline before the March 2019 grounding and deliveries are expected to continue in 2022, according to the airline.
Like most carriers that adopted the Max, the Brazilian carrier has a strong fleet of Boeing 737s that made the Max a logical choice, as pilots could fly the 737 Next Generation and the 737 Max interchangeably. It was initially marketed as a cost-effective upgrade that required no additional simulator training for the pilots.
Boeing lobbied strongly against requiring pilots to undergo additional simulator training, as it would have made the plane less attractive to potential customers and a more expensive investment. Additional training often means more downtime for pilots who would need to spend time learning the aircraft’s systems and how to fly it. Instead, a computer-based training was recommended.
What the pilots were not told about the Max, however, was the addition of a quasi-autopilot system known as the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, or MCAS, which would take over and tilt the plane downward. if the sensors indicated that the plane was angled too high. .
read more: The 16 Most Outrageous Things Boeing Employees Said About The Company, The 737 Max Program And Each Other In Posted Internal Emails.
However, Gol’s flight was not the first with passengers in the Max in 2020, as American Airlines has been taking employees and media on demonstration flights in cities across the US. Business Insider’s David Slotnick flew in the first flight of a Max in the US last week and detailed the changes American was making to get its fleet of 24 jets and count in the sky for its debut in late December.
American will be the first U.S. airline to fly the Max based on current airline schedules of the Max’s three U.S. carriers: American Airlines, United Airlines and Southwest Airlines, with the first flights scheduled for December 29 on the Miami-New route. York. . Cities along the east coast and in the Caribbean will see the Max arrive in January as American rapidly grows the plane’s route network.
United Airlines will follow in February with its Boeing 737 Max 9 debut scheduled for February 11. The plane will fly routes from Los Angeles and Houston to cities such as Orlando, San Diego and Tampa, as well as between Los Angeles and Houston.
Southwest Airlines has not announced a return-to-service date for its Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft and CEO Gary Kelly said the plane will not fly before the second quarter of 2021. One of the plane’s biggest supporters, Southwest has nearly 300 Boeing 737s. Max. aircraft on order, 34 of which were delivered before the March 2019 grounding, Cirium data shows.
Alaska Airlines will receive its first Boeing 737 Max in 2021 and will begin flying the aircraft in March after extensive flight tests. The first flight is currently scheduled for March 1 from Los Angeles to Portland, Oregon, according to Cirium data, but that may change.
Travelers, however, can expect the Boeing 737 Max to be common in the skies once again by the end of next year, as airlines are eager to take advantage of the jet’s cost-saving economy and finally fly the plane they are. spending billions to acquire.
