[ad_1]
- On Tuesday, American Airlines became the first U.S. airline to fly the Boeing 737 Max since it was grounded in March 2019 after two accidents in a span of five months.
- Writer Chris Sloan was aboard the three-hour flight from Miami to New York with 95 other people comprised of journalists, bloggers, airline employees and regular passengers.
- Sloan says he felt completely safe and comfortable in the Max, and that the flight went smoothly except for minor bumps during the descent into windy New York.
- Some members of the flight personnel were so comfortable with the return of the Max that they brought family members for the memorable event.
- Visit the Business Insider home page for more stories.
On Tuesday, American Airlines became the first American airline to fly the Boeing 737 Max en route from Miami to New York, launching a new saga for the famous aircraft.
The 737 Max was once Boeing’s best-selling commercial aircraft of all time, peaking at more than 5,000 orders and a great success for its 79 operators. The Max has made nearly 250,000 flights worldwide since it began carrying passengers in May 2017. The Max was then suspended by the FAA in March 2019 after two unfortunate flights that crashed five months apart and were charged. 346 lives. The plane has not carried passengers in the United States since, until Tuesday.
After months of hard work to correct quality control, design, and cultural flaws, Boeing has prepared the Max for passenger flights. American Airlines and other carriers have also been working fast to get the Max to fly safely again. According to a statement from American Airlines, its technology operations team in Tulsa, Oklahoma, has dedicated more than 64,000 man hours to maintaining and upgrading Max’s fleet over the past 20 months.
For years, I flew the Boeing 737 Max twice a month on one of American Airlines’ most profitable and well traveled milk production runs between Miami and New York. Flying doesn’t get much more routine than this route, and it became a pedestrian for me as it was for many others.
Tuesday’s flight was the first step in rebuilding the trust that Boeing and the Max once had among their airline customers and the traveling public. (AA conducted a demonstration flight on December 3.)
This is what it was like to be a passenger aboard the first passenger flight of the Boeing 737 Max.
