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Boeing hopes to resume 737 MAX deliveries to China in first quarter 2022
October 29th 2021
Boeing Company CEO, David Calhoun, says the manufacturer is continuing to work towards operational approval by China of the 737 MAX by the end of the year and the resumption of deliveries in the first quarter of next year. Read More » China was the first country to ground the MAX after two deadly crashes claimed 346 lives and is one of the last to approve a return to operations of the type. There is no guarantee of approval, but Boeing was buoyed by a successful test flight in the third quarter. Calhoun said more than 175 countries have approved resumption of MAX operations and the company had delivered 195 MAXs, including about a third of the 450 aircraft that remain in inventory. Thirty one airlines have returned their MAX fleets to service with more than 200 planes in revenue service. “And those airlines have safely flown over 206,000 commercial flights totalling more than 500,000 flight hours,’’ Calhoun told analysts this week. He added the fleet had a reliability rate of 99% and this was improving. “In September, we saw the eighth straight month of positive net commercial airplane orders, primarily due to the 737 MAX,’’ he said. “At the end of the quarter, we had more than 3,300 aircraft in our 737 backlog, highlighting the airplane family's value proposition. Given this demand during the third quarter, we increased our production rate to 19 airplanes per month and continued to progress toward a production rate of 31 per month in early 2022. While we deliver from inventory, we are balancing the need to increase the production rate to support increasing demand longer term.” Calhoun said progress also was being made on certifying the 737 MAX 7 and 737 MAX 10 variants. “We anticipate the first delivery of the 737 MAX 7 in early 2022 and the first delivery of the 737 MAX 10 in 2023,’’ he said. “As always, we will follow the lead of global regulators in the steps ahead on all certification matters.”
