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- American Airlines flew the first scheduled passenger flight in 21 months of the Boeing 737 Max in the United States from Miami to New York on Tuesday.
- The uneventful flight marked the beginning of a new chapter for the aircraft that aims to restore the confidence of the traveling public.
- Airlines like American are eager for the plane to fly to take advantage of their economy and get the base behind them.
- The aircraft was on the ground for 20 months after two fatal accidents that claimed the lives of 346 passengers.
- Visit the Business Insider home page for more stories.
The Boeing 737 Max saga is finally over for American Airlines, as the plane’s first flight with paying passengers has just landed safely at New York’s LaGuardia Airport after a 3-hour flight from Miami.
American Flight 718, a likely homage to one of New York’s area codes, left Miami on board only on a routine east coast flight with just 83 passengers, including American Airlines president Robert Isom. on Tuesday. The aircraft quickly climbed to 39,000 feet as it hugged the shoreline, data from Flightradar 24 shows, and prepared for the familiar but monumental journey that would represent a second chance for the unfortunate aircraft.
It was one of 11 daily flights that American would operate between the two cities, but it was arguably the most-viewed flight of the day, as it was the first to carry pay passengers on the jet in the US since March 2019 The two-year-old plane operating the flight was delivered to American in May 2018, according to Planespotters.net, but has been idle on the ground longer than it has been flying, enduring a 20-month suspension along with 24 compatriots.
In the weeks leading up to this first flight, American worked enthusiastically to return its Max aircraft to flight service, beginning with the implementation of the required corrections mandated by the Federal Aviation Administration. Once its first aircraft were eligible, American began demonstration flights with employees and the media, including Business Insider senior reporter David Slotnick.
It’s the day American has been waiting for since March 2019, but the Max story began much earlier with a phone call from then-American Airlines CEO Gerard Arpey to Boeing in 2011. Arpey had lobbied Boeing to produce a new one. low consumption model. to compete with the next-generation A320neo aircraft produced by Airbus, which American was considering purchasing at the time.
American was placing a massive order for hundreds of new jets, and Boeing risked being lost if it didn’t act quickly. The manufacturer was considering a clean plane, but American had forced its hand to pull the trigger on a fresh-engine version of the popular 737 Next Generation, and the result was the Boeing 737 Max we know today.
“American is pleased to be the first airline to commit to Boeing’s new 737 family offering, which is expected to provide a new level of economic efficiency and operational performance, pending final program confirmation from Boeing. “the airline said in a statement. committing himself to the Max before he was known as Max.
However, as Boeing soon discovered, developing the new aircraft was not as simple as giving it new fuel-efficient engines, as the aircraft’s design needed to be fine-tuned. The new location of the engines caused the aircraft to tilt and fly differently than the current generation 737s, prompting Boeing to install a quasi-autopilot system known as the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System to tilt the plane down, unbeknownst to the pilots.
It was important that the Max flew like its predecessor so that pilots could fly both interchangeably with very little additional training. This was a key selling feature of the aircraft as it could keep training costs low for airlines.
An airline like American could train its pilots on the Boeing 737 using its existing training scheme and only require pilots to undergo minimal computer training to fly the Max at limited additional cost to the airline. This is not uncommon as Airbus has a similar setup for its Airbus A320 and A320neo family aircraft, as the cabins are almost identical.
But the system ended up working against Boeing when sensor failures were inadvertently triggered, crashing two planes carrying a total of 346 people. Boeing spent more than a year working on fixes before the Federal Aviation Administration was satisfied enough to begin test flights in late September.
FAA Administrator Steve Dickson, a former airline pilot, was commanding one of them to personally answer for the safety of the aircraft. His agency had come under scrutiny for failing to properly regulate Boeing, mishandling the 737 Max certification process, and most recently mishandling the recertification process, as found in a US Senate report.
read moreThe 16 Most Outrageous Things Boeing Employees Said About The Company, The 737 Max Program And Each Other In Posted Internal Emails.
Rebuilding the Max in America
American is the first American airline to resume service with what is arguably the most infamous aircraft of the modern era, and is rushing to launch the aircraft in 2020 ahead of its competitors. Brazil’s Gol Linhas Aereas was the first airline to resume the Max flight, operating the first flight on December 9, followed by Aeromexico on December 29.
United Airlines will not fly the plane for a month, plans to fly the Max from Houston and Denver starting February 11, 2021. Southwest Airlines, while maintaining the largest fleet of Boeing 737 Maxs before the pandemic, has yet to announced a start. date or loaded the aircraft on its schedule, show the most recent data from Cirium.
Alaska Airlines has a tentative start date of March 1, 2021 for the aircraft where it will fly routes through the West Coast. The first model is scheduled to arrive in Alaska in January, after which the airline promised to conduct extensive tests of more than 50 hours over 19,000 miles.
Richard Aboulafia, vice president of analytics at Teal Group, told Business Insider that there are two likely reasons for American’s rush to restore the Max to service: fuel prices and seasonality. The plane has economic benefits that airlines cannot afford to pass up, and the Max can hedge against rising fuel prices thanks to its fuel efficiency.
“There is concern that fuel prices will rise again and could rise again with the recovery,” Aboulafia said.
American is also basing the plane in Miami, which has seen a surge of travelers seeking to escape the cities hardest hit by the pandemic. Having the Max can help increase margins on routes to South Florida and other popular places like St. Thomas and St. Croix in the US Virgin Islands, where American plans to fly the jet in January.
However, the four US airlines that fly the Boeing 737 Max have promised flexibility for passengers who prefer not to fly on the plane. Passengers on the plane can make free changes to other planes.
The successful first flight starts the long road to restoring consumer confidence in the aircraft. While some see the aircraft as “the most vetted aircraft in history,” as Aboulafia put it, others are actively avoiding it as the Max has had an staying power in the minds of the traveling public unlike any other aircraft on the ground. in recent years.
American will fly the plane exclusively between New York and Miami until January 5, 2021, when more routes will see the plane. And the name Max doesn’t alienate many, since the return flight from New York to Miami is reportedly “solid reserved”.
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