American Airlines launches Boeing 737 Max flights to boost confidence in jets

American Airlines is flying its employees, including senior executives and journalists on its Boeing 737 Max jets this week, in hopes of boosting confidence in the airliners which were grounded for 20 months after two crashes that killed 346 people.

The airline plans to demonstrate how it is removing the planes from storage and preparing them for flights at its maintenance base in Tulsa, Oklahoma on Wednesday. The airline is also planning to allow customers to view planes at airports before commercial service resumes.

The Federal Aviation Administration lifted its ban on planes on Nov. 18, allowing airlines to resume flying planes. Regulators around the world grounded planes in March 2019 after the two crashes of nearly new 737 Max planes within five months of each other.

American is set to become the first commercial airline to resume flights with paid passengers, with initial routes scheduled to begin Dec. 29 between Miami and New York’s LaGuardia Airport.

Pilot training begins this week, including computer-assisted training and a session in a flight simulator, a step that was not necessary when flight crews originally switched to the 737 Max from there. ‘old model. The airline had 24 planes in its fleet at the time of the grounding.

Building confidence in aircraft is a priority for US airlines and others. A poorly activated flight control system was involved in both crashes: Lion Air Flight 610 in Indonesia in October 2018 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 in Ethiopia in March 2019 in Ethiopia. The pilots fought the system until the last moments of the flight.

These crashes forced Boeing to make the system less aggressive, giving pilots more control of the plane and offering more redundancies among other changes, which the FAA signed on to.

Airlines have said they will clearly note on their websites when a traveler books a flight operated on a 737 Max. American and Southwest have said passengers whose flights are operated on a Max will be able to switch to another flight at no charge.

Southwest and United, which also have 737 Max jets in their fleets, plan to return the jets to commercial service next year.

U.S. airlines and others plan to resume flight from the Max as the industry reels from the coronavirus pandemic. The virus and accompanying travel restrictions have devastated demand for air travel, forcing airlines to not only try to convince travelers that the Max can fly safely, but that it is safe to fly in general. .

Passenger traffic during the Thanksgiving break peaked more than eight months, but is still around 40% of last year’s levels as many potential travelers stay home or switch to other modes of transportation .

Airlines have spent the pandemic stockpiling older aircraft as they downsized capacity to meet weak demand and cut costs. This contrasts sharply with last year, when customers of the Boeing 737 Max were eager to receive the planes as demand increased, especially during the peak summer months.