Various sources are reporting that the 737 MAX has been ungrounded by the FAA.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/18/business ... index.html

It will be interesting to see how the stored airplanes get returned (or, in many cases, introduced) into service over the coming months and years.

I suspect many of those parked planes will stay exactly where they are. Between COVID19 and the public's likely unwillingness to fly the plane, only a handful will be back in the air any time soon.

Any details on what is fixed?

Now the burden is on airlines to line up funds and take deliveries. It will be interesting to watch how it unfolds.

WN,AS or DL will announce buying 50 white tails in 3 2 1 go! hahahahaha. It's Murphy's Law the worst year in airline history and the Max finally gets ungrounded.
Seriously I think someone will probably make an announcement showing loyalty and trust in Boeing.


Flyguy

Cointrin330 wrote:

I suspect many of those parked planes will stay exactly where they are. Between COVID19 and the public's likely unwillingness to fly the plane, only a handful will be back in the air any time soon.

I expect it will be sooner than you think. The efficiencies are worth chasing and these will replace other less efficient aircraft over the next few months.

Obviously, there's still a lot of work to be done to bring them back into revenue service but I expect that the airlines most affected (AA, WN, UA, etc.) already have plans in place to meet the challenges as soon as practical.

Cointrin330 wrote:

I suspect many of those parked planes will stay exactly where they are. Between COVID19 and the public's likely unwillingness to fly the plane, only a handful will be back in the air any time soon.

The idea that the majority of the flying public (who are not avgeeks) actually know what they are flying on makes most of public's opinion of the Max irrelevant. If the airlines rebrand the safety cards to 737-8 then most will for sure have no idea what kind of aircraft they are on. I commonly ask that question of non-avgeek friends and they differentiate the plane by whether it has propellors or not. Some don't even recall the number of aisles. People will forget quickly the history of the aircraft.

AA, United, and Southwest will have them back in the air relatively quickly I reckon - the fuel savings are too good not to be flying them.

I am so looking forward to fly this aircraft again! The sooner the better. This is Christmas my come early. Now I am curious to see when my company will start them up again...

EdmFlyBoi wrote:

Cointrin330 wrote:

I suspect many of those parked planes will stay exactly where they are. Between COVID19 and the public's likely unwillingness to fly the plane, only a handful will be back in the air any time soon.

The idea that the majority of the flying public (who are not avgeeks) actually know what they are flying on makes most of public's opinion of the Max irrelevant. If the airlines rebrand the safety cards to 737-8 then most will for sure have no idea what kind of aircraft they are on. I commonly ask that question of non-avgeek friends and they differentiate the plane by whether it has propellors or not. Some don't even recall the number of aisles. People will forget quickly the history of the aircraft.

AA, United, and Southwest will have them back in the air relatively quickly I reckon - the fuel savings are too good not to be flying them.

Concur. Most of my "outsider" friends don't even remember basic details on how many engines a plane had or where they were even located (under the wings, or in the back, etc.), much to my slight disappointment. I'd fly on it tomorrow; it's gone through a heckuva lot of scrutiny in the past year and a half with so many eyes on it on a global level. And Boeing has known very well that they cannot afford to blow what the media has rightfully called one of the biggest corporate blunders in history.

Great news! Congrats Boeing. They can have this day. We should of course not forget the lives lost and the unforgivable negligence of its past leadership(hopefully) but I am also confident in the fixes and the future of Boeing! I look forward to getting on one in the near future

saab2000 wrote:

Obviously, there's still a lot of work to be done to bring them back into revenue service but I expect that the airlines most affected (AA, WN, UA, etc.) already have plans in place to meet the challenges as soon as practical.

Heard on CNBC, where the FAA Administrator was a guest, the relaunch planned for AA around end of December.

I expect a quiet rebranding to the 737-8/-7/-9/-10.

This is the most scrutinized aircraft that I know of. I will fly on it.

Avgeek21 wrote:

I am so looking forward to fly this aircraft again! The sooner the better. This is Christmas my come early. Now I am curious to see when my company will start them up again...

I myself look forward to flying the type. For AA, AS, UA, WN, and FR, I expect the added capability to be put to good use.

The delay will be all the required training more so than preparing the first few aircraft for service.

Lightsaber

Cointrin330 wrote:

I suspect many of those parked planes will stay exactly where they are. Between COVID19 and the public's likely unwillingness to fly the plane, only a handful will be back in the air any time soon.

Unless the buyer was buying the model as a replacement for old frames and needs replacement. Air Canada and Icelandair will want a return to service.

Wonderful news!

A good start, now for all aircraft to be modified, crew to be trained and EASA, CAAC etc. to also re certify the 737-8.
I'm sure there is no light between EASA 737 MAX certification requirements and the MAX certified by FAA today.

Is the FAA a reputable agency in terms of safety? What about EASA or CAAC? Have they certified the aircraft?

EdmFlyBoi wrote:

Cointrin330 wrote:

I suspect many of those parked planes will stay exactly where they are. Between COVID19 and the public's likely unwillingness to fly the plane, only a handful will be back in the air any time soon.

The idea that the majority of the flying public (who are not avgeeks) actually know what they are flying on makes most of public's opinion of the Max irrelevant. If the airlines rebrand the safety cards to 737-8 then most will for sure have no idea what kind of aircraft they are on. I commonly ask that question of non-avgeek friends and they differentiate the plane by whether it has propellors or not. Some don't even recall the number of aisles. People will forget quickly the history of the aircraft.

AA, United, and Southwest will have them back in the air relatively quickly I reckon - the fuel savings are too good not to be flying them.

Ordinarily I would agree with you but the publicity on the 737 Max is such that people will try to avoid it. It's been on the news almost as talked about as the US election. My friends and family will call on me, the resident AVgeek and ask, "737-8, is that the Max? I don't want to fly on the Max." Eventually that will go back to normal but I am old enough to remember the DC-10 grounding - and how people *did* avoid it after it was ungrounded and it took awhile before its reputation got better. (Yes I am aware that the DC-10 wasn't at fault but we are talking about passenger perceptions)

For details refer to information released by FAA under Freedom of Information Act:

https://www.faa.gov/foia/electronic_rea ... ding_room/

aemoreira1981 wrote:

Cointrin330 wrote:

I suspect many of those parked planes will stay exactly where they are. Between COVID19 and the public's likely unwillingness to fly the plane, only a handful will be back in the air any time soon.

Unless the buyer was buying the model as a replacement for old frames and needs replacement. Air Canada and Icelandair will want a return to service.

Icelandair will benefit tremendously from the improved performance. I forgot about their grounded fleet.

Spot price if JetA $1.20/gallon or about $397.81 per metric ton:
https://www.airlines.org/argus-us-jet-fuel-index/

Low was $0.61/gallon
https://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/ ... y=jet-fuel

To put in perspective, in the boom times $1.70/gallon to $1.98 (monthly average):
https://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/ ... months=240

So fuel is pricey enough that the MAX pays for the upgrade.

Lightsaber

Good for Boeing. This became endless.

Nice to see some good aviation news.

I think this move was made to get the plane flying again in the US. This will demonstrate safety and hopefully cajole other authorities along

The real questions are:

Who will be responsible for refitting the grounded aircrafts? Boeing? Or will Boeing train airline mechanics to do the modifications?

Who will be responsible for test and passing it to make sure it’s all working per FAA specs?

What if something happens similar to the crashes, will Boeing blame improper re work of the modifications on the airlines? Or perhaps poor pilot training and understanding of an unpredictable system?

Too many loop holes here that the airlines and Boeing must come to terms with.

And if I was a major airline, that’s a huge liability there if something happens AGAIN, like you do not want to be any part of this at all. The max is still a huge risk and must fly its full life time and retire to bring that risk down.

To me, airlines should not be In a huge rush to refit and re introduce their current maxes.

They must test them out for an extended period and fly them for six month with no passengers and only training to understand the Max’s true risk assessment.

I’m gonna disagree with a couple of you regarding willingness to fly on it. While most of the time the flying public has no idea what it’s flying, this is different. It will now be about the flying public making sure they are flying anything but the Max. Heard this from several non-av geek friends and family. They said they will look for the plane type on their ticket confirmation and check-in page. Even heard people, for example, trying to distinguish physical differences of the Max and other 737s at Southwest specifically. These crashes were the first back to back crashes in our 24/7/365 social media and online news obsessed world. This is far different than the 1990s days of a single breaking news coverage on the day of crash and updates barely mentioned on the evening news for the few that even watched it.

Cointrin330 wrote:

I suspect many of those parked planes will stay exactly where they are. Between COVID19 and the public's likely unwillingness to fly the plane, only a handful will be back in the air any time soon.

I’m going to disagree. If ever there was a time to get an efficient jet in the air, this should be it. Maybe a bit of a delay only to get the training done and the MAX fleet ready for re-introduction to the fleet, but those jets won’t sit longer than that.

I expect it will be sooner than you think. The efficiencies are worth chasing and these will replace other less efficient aircraft over the next few months.

Concur. As older types are becoming more and more inefficient, the MAX will slot in there nicely as a more efficient alternative or replacement; given the current environment, airlines need every cost saving opportunity then can find. And, for those who've already ordered the plane, they're already paid for. May as well put that capital to use.

randomdude83 wrote:

The real questions are:

Who will be responsible for refitting the grounded aircrafts? Boeing? Or will Boeing train airline mechanics to do the modifications?

Who will be responsible for test and passing it to make sure it’s all working per FAA specs?

What if something happens similar to the crashes, will Boeing blame improper re work of the modifications on the airlines? Or perhaps poor pilot training and understanding of an unpredictable system?

Boeing will most likely have to work with individual aviation regulators around the world, wherever the 737MAX is inservice, and through them delegate the training and refitting procedures with Boeing monitoring the process.
An article here for one country shows how Boeing is going to be ensuring the return to service for the MAX. Can't speak for all other countries though.
https://www.cnbctv18.com/aviation/boein ... 405381.htm

Cointrin330 wrote:

I suspect many of those parked planes will stay exactly where they are. Between COVID19 and the public's likely unwillingness to fly the plane, only a handful will be back in the air any time soon.

United Airlines already has plans to get the planes back into the air in Q1 or Q2 2021 at the latest after the flight crews go through an extensive training program.

A lot of people on this site are aviation enthusiast, or work in aviation so wee do pay attention to the type of aircraft we are flying on. We pay attention during the booking process all the way through the boarding process. However that isn't true for the general public, my husband whom I've tried to education about aviation for the past 10 years still can't tell the difference between a 737 and an A320. Aviation does not interest him all, all he knows is it's an aircraft. People who are not aviation enthusiast will not know the difference between an Airbus and a Boeing, and they certainly won't know the difference between a 738NG and a 738MAX. Most airlines on their websites already display the type of aircraft operating a flight and 99% of the population do not pay attention to the aircraft type.

csavel wrote:

EdmFlyBoi wrote:

Cointrin330 wrote:

I suspect many of those parked planes will stay exactly where they are. Between COVID19 and the public's likely unwillingness to fly the plane, only a handful will be back in the air any time soon.

The idea that the majority of the flying public (who are not avgeeks) actually know what they are flying on makes most of public's opinion of the Max irrelevant. If the airlines rebrand the safety cards to 737-8 then most will for sure have no idea what kind of aircraft they are on. I commonly ask that question of non-avgeek friends and they differentiate the plane by whether it has propellors or not. Some don't even recall the number of aisles. People will forget quickly the history of the aircraft.

AA, United, and Southwest will have them back in the air relatively quickly I reckon - the fuel savings are too good not to be flying them.

Ordinarily I would agree with you but the publicity on the 737 Max is such that people will try to avoid it. It's been on the news almost as talked about as the US election. My friends and family will call on me, the resident AVgeek and ask, "737-8, is that the Max? I don't want to fly on the Max." Eventually that will go back to normal but I am old enough to remember the DC-10 grounding - and how people *did* avoid it after it was ungrounded and it took awhile before its reputation got better. (Yes I am aware that the DC-10 wasn't at fault but we are talking about passenger perceptions)

The Chicago crash was not but the Paris Turkish and the near-disaster of AA new Buffalo most certainly were. This is when it should have been grounded but as we know a 'gentleman's agreement' fixed that.
I believe the overreaction to the AA Chicago crash was a direct result of the other underreaction. The DC-10 wasn't grounded by many European airlines as far as I remember.
Hopefully, the MAX does not have another crash for some considerable time if ever because should it happen I fear it will be finished in the eyes of the flying public.

aemoreira1981 wrote:

Cointrin330 wrote:

I suspect many of those parked planes will stay exactly where they are. Between COVID19 and the public's likely unwillingness to fly the plane, only a handful will be back in the air any time soon.

Unless the buyer was buying the model as a replacement for old frames and needs replacement. Air Canada and Icelandair will want a return to service.

I imagine an ASAP return to service might not be a bad idea actually, it would mean by the time the public are travelling 'en masse' again, the Max could have a full year or two of (hopefully) trouble free service under it's belt.

Congratulations to Boeing, FAA, and EASA, this has been a long time coming.

Tack wrote:

Cointrin330 wrote:

I suspect many of those parked planes will stay exactly where they are. Between COVID19 and the public's likely unwillingness to fly the plane, only a handful will be back in the air any time soon.

I’m going to disagree. If ever there was a time to get an efficient jet in the air, this should be it. Maybe a bit of a delay only to get the training done and the MAX fleet ready for re-introduction to the fleet, but those jets won’t sit longer than that.

It is fuel efficiency and maintenance. The level of predictive maintenance, in particular on the engines, us a huge step forward on the MAX.

In all the negative press, the predictive maintenance has been overlooked:
https://www.aviationtoday.com/2018/04/2 ... aeec-2018/

“What I’m excited about is moving beyond just getting off the airplane and seeing if we can't look upstream from those fault codes and look at different data signatures or data footprints out there and have some predictive analytics," he added. "Using advanced algorithms and machine-learning and creating neat things about trying to predict some of our maintenance items early."

The 787 took forever to achieve good predictive maintenance, but now that it has it working, no airline would give it up. The software was perfected on the Dreamliner and now must be tuned for the MAX. I worked just enough to see GE wasn't going to let CFM budge from their predictive maintenance scheme. The planes produce 700 to 1000 MB of data per flight. While algorithms are young, they work and will improve. Notice how many analysis systems just became available in this 2017 article:
https://www.aviationpros.com/aircraft/m ... aintenance

Lightsaber

kiowa wrote:

I have very little faith in the government and do not trust that aircraft.

I've flown on the aircraft several times oin WN and their pilots have thousands of hours experience with the jet. I trust them and the aircraft.

It will be extremely safe, more eyes and awareness on it than any aircraft. I expect because of that it will be safer than the -NGs and the A320F now. The safety/MX/Training issues raised above so far are without merit, the only real issue is the perception one which is real.

I'm old enough to remember the Lockeed Electra. Once Engineeers understood what happened and fixed it the airplane went on to perform admirably. Look how it's used as an air tanker today.

I feel safe, simply because of this: If a single Max crashes in the next year, It'll be the end of Boeing. All reputation gained over the past 100 years will be dead.

DalDC9Bos wrote:

I’m gonna disagree with a couple of you regarding willingness to fly on it. While most of the time the flying public has no idea what it’s flying, this is different. It will now be about the flying public making sure they are flying anything but the Max. Heard this from several non-av geek friends and family. They said they will look for the plane type on their ticket confirmation and check-in page. Even heard people, for example, trying to distinguish physical differences of the Max and other 737s at Southwest specifically. These crashes were the first back to back crashes in our 24/7/365 social media and online news obsessed world. This is far different than the 1990s days of a single breaking news coverage on the day of crash and updates barely mentioned on the evening news for the few that even watched it.

I agree with you here. Unlike prior air catastrophes, this really grabbed people's attention because of the high-level cover-ups and failures of certification, due diligence, and so on.

In short, the MAX events shook people's very TRUST in the system.

BooDog wrote:

I feel safe, simply because of this: If a single Max crashes in the next year, It'll be the end of Boeing. All reputation gained over the past 100 years will be dead.

Another good point. God forbid anything happen on the MAX now, because it will kill Boeing's commercial airplane group entirely. I don't think that's an exaggerated point.

lightsaber wrote:

This is the most scrutinized aircraft that I know of.

As it should be given the number of people its killed. I don't see why people see this as a big positive - it's the most scrutinized because it needed to be.

lightsaber wrote:

I expect a quiet rebranding to the 737-8/-7/-9/-10.

Maybe, but that doesn't seem to be consistent with the platform of openness and transparency which Dave Calhoun pledged that Boeing would work towards.

Tack wrote:

Cointrin330 wrote:

I suspect many of those parked planes will stay exactly where they are. Between COVID19 and the public's likely unwillingness to fly the plane, only a handful will be back in the air any time soon.

I’m going to disagree. If ever there was a time to get an efficient jet in the air, this should be it. Maybe a bit of a delay only to get the training done and the MAX fleet ready for re-introduction to the fleet, but those jets won’t sit longer than that.

Aside from the efficiency benefit that several people have harped on, let’s not forget that the airlines have already paid for the delivered planes. There is a end date when Boeing is no longer responsible for compensating grounded planes and its all on the airline (that date being shortly after RTS is approved by that airline’s regulating authority). You are going to see airlines bringing them back fairly quickly (as much as they can) so they can start getting revenue off of the relatively new plane they are leasing or financing.

DalDC9Bos wrote:

I’m gonna disagree with a couple of you regarding willingness to fly on it. While most of the time the flying public has no idea what it’s flying, this is different. It will now be about the flying public making sure they are flying anything but the Max. Heard this from several non-av geek friends and family. They said they will look for the plane type on their ticket confirmation and check-in page. Even heard people, for example, trying to distinguish physical differences of the Max and other 737s at Southwest specifically. These crashes were the first back to back crashes in our 24/7/365 social media and online news obsessed world. This is far different than the 1990s days of a single breaking news coverage on the day of crash and updates barely mentioned on the evening news for the few that even watched it.

Well then its up to us well informed AV-Geeks to then help spread the word that the MAX should be fine.

The fears will fade into the background quite quickly. There won't be 800 frames in the sky on Day 1 - it will probably take a good 2 years to get to that level. As the first frames will probably take longer to modify/get ready for flight there might be 200 flying 3-4 months from now - a drop in the bucket in terms of SA frames.

Congrats. But I don't think there will overall be a gradual RTS rather than a rush back to service as there currently is more than enough capacity. Would be interesting to know what the CAAC plan of actions are from here on, because if both the FAA and EASA will have certified the MAX, the Chinese position would be very odd (not that they care).

For obvious reasons, I'd guess that Ethiopian and Lion Air will be dead last when it comes to restarting MAX service.

Are there any specific word from pilots (that have flown test flights) regarding how smooth their flights went? And what possible difficulties that they may have encountered?

I remember back in 2018/19, there was a story that some US Airline (either UA, AA, or WN) pilots reported that their plane randomly pitched down a few times in mid-air, but the concern was just thrown under the rug.

saab2000 wrote:

Cointrin330 wrote:

I suspect many of those parked planes will stay exactly where they are. Between COVID19 and the public's likely unwillingness to fly the plane, only a handful will be back in the air any time soon.

I expect it will be sooner than you think. The efficiencies are worth chasing and these will replace other less efficient aircraft over the next few months.

Obviously, there's still a lot of work to be done to bring them back into revenue service but I expect that the airlines most affected (AA, WN, UA, etc.) already have plans in place to meet the challenges as soon as practical.

The practical challenge is now to get FAA to approve each airline's training plan.

Yet the airlines will be motivated to get the airframes to RTS.

AA's CFO says due to Boeing compensation provided at time of each aircraft's delivery, each MAX they take is significantly cash positive for them ( ref: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1437865&p=22516875#p22516195 ) so during this crisis they have a positive incentive to take the MAXes.

If people believe that it was money that got Boeing into this crisis, it should not be too hard for them to believe it will be money that gets them out of it.

People who are saying they won't ever fly on MAX again will IMO in most all cases will eventually see a good fare to go visit Grandma or the beach on WN or FR or some other MAX operator and their own frugality will override their fears.

Boeing and the airlines will work together to get them airworthy. Boeing has hired a lot of retired mechanics to get them back in the air.

DalDC9Bos wrote:

I’m gonna disagree with a couple of you regarding willingness to fly on it. While most of the time the flying public has no idea what it’s flying, this is different. It will now be about the flying public making sure they are flying anything but the Max. Heard this from several non-av geek friends and family. They said they will look for the plane type on their ticket confirmation and check-in page. Even heard people, for example, trying to distinguish physical differences of the Max and other 737s at Southwest specifically. These crashes were the first back to back crashes in our 24/7/365 social media and online news obsessed world. This is far different than the 1990s days of a single breaking news coverage on the day of crash and updates barely mentioned on the evening news for the few that even watched it.

Some undoubtedly will look for it and will get it right. Even more will think they know what they’re talking about and as usual be wrong. About eight weeks after the grounding a friend of mine texted me almost apoplectic that “OMG THIS IS A 737! THEYRE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE FLYING THESE THEYRE GROUNDED.” And would not listen when I tried to tell her the difference between an NG and a MAX. She didn’t get it. She didn’t get off the plane either...so make of that what you will.

acavpics wrote:

For obvious reasons, I'd guess that Ethiopian and Lion Air will be dead last when it comes to restarting MAX service.

I bet Lion Air gets it back up as soon as possible. Even after their crash they publicly stated they wanted to order more of them.

Please keep posts appropriate. Inappropriate comments will be removed.

✈️ atcsundevil

Delta needs to conserve $, no MAX for now unless Boeing gives them an excellent deal on price and financing.

Perhaps Boeing will offer Delta 100% financing , interest free with payments beginning in 2025. Boeing has a lot of white tails to move big incentive for them to just break even on the white tails.

keesje wrote:

I'm sure there is no light between EASA 737 MAX certification requirements and the MAX certified by FAA today.

Some agencies might delay the ungrounding to assert their 'independence' from the FAA. News of the progression will make it here, surely.

Manufacturers need to hope, however, that the various national certification boards can get back to the point of trusting each other. Multiple independent certifications would significantly add cost and slow time to market.

FF630 wrote:

Delta needs to conserve $, no MAX for now unless Boeing gives them an excellent deal on price and financing.

Perhaps Boeing will offer Delta 100% financing , interest free with payments beginning in 2025. Boeing has a lot of white tails to move big incentive for them to just break even on the white tails.

No payments until 2025? How would that help Boeing? That means they're giving away an asset with no financial return for four years. The shareholders would never stand for it.

I agree the training programs, along with FAA approval, are the long lead. AA seems far along. My impression is for WN it is all or nothing with their training of pilots. Please correct me if I am wrong.


An old thread on SouthWest claiming the -8 MAX was meeting the expected fuel burn improvements:
viewtopic.php?t=1385131

As someone in Aerospace R&D, I naturally think towards the next PiPs. Eventually CMC part count will increase, but I see it taking years for GE to build and optimize those new factories.

Lightsaber

The only probable way that there are more crashes is if Airlines fail to take the other Major learning from the MAX disasters (and AF447 and Air Asia 8501) into account and adjust their training programs appropriately.

That is - on Average Manual flying skills seem to be severely lacking amongst Airline pilots and in recurrent training they need to be made a much larger part of the training syllabus and practiced when appropriate during normal operations so pilots don't forget how to manually control an aircraft.

There will be some MCAS training - but as far as I'm aware nothing will change in terms of 100-200 Hour wonders finding themselves in the right seat of an Single Aisle jet with very little manual flight experience in adverse conditions.