Chinese regulator’s Boeing 737 MAX test flight a success

ZHUHAI, China, September 29 (Reuters) – The test flight of the Boeing Co (BN) 737 MAX for the Chinese aviation regulator last month was a success and the aircraft manufacturer is hoping that the grounding two-year period will be lifted this year, said the chief operating officer of Boeing in China. said Wednesday.

“It went off without a hitch,” Boeing China President Sherry Carbary said of the test flight, speaking on the sidelines of Airshow China, the country’s biggest air show. Read more

Boeing is working with the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) as it sifts through data and finalizes reports before deciding whether the plane can be returned to service, Carbary said.

The ban, which was lifted in the West and several Asian countries, could be relaxed in China around November, people familiar with the matter told Reuters. Read more

“We hope that will happen by the end of the year,” Carbary said, declining to be more specific. “It’s up to the CAAC to decide. But I can tell you that we are doing everything we can to support them and we are encouraged to see how closely they are working with us.

Before the 737 MAX was grounded in March 2019 after two fatal crashes, Boeing was selling a quarter of the planes it built each year to Chinese buyers.

The company’s sales in China have also been hampered by trade tensions between the United States and China.

US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo said on Tuesday that the Chinese government was preventing its national airlines from buying “tens of billions of dollars” of Boeing planes. Read more

Carbary declined to comment directly on the remarks, but said free and fair trade was important for Boeing to deliver its planes around the world.

“I believe that at the moment our two governments have competition concerns on sensitive issues which are legitimate and both countries need to resolve them,” she said.

Reporting by Stella Qiu and David Kirton in Zhuhai; written by Jamie Freed. Editing by Gerry Doyle

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