Boeing 737 MAX ‘unlikely’ to return this year

The latest timeline anticipates the Federal Aviation Administration won’t finish work to lift its March 2019 grounding order until late October or early November.

The timetable still could speed up and MAX operations could resume earlier. Picture: GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / AFP

Boeing’s 737 MAX isn’t likely to resume widespread passenger flights until early next year — nearly two months beyond previous expectations — due to ­another regulatory delay, according to US government and industry officials.

That means the jets are expected to be grounded at least as long under the plane maker’s chief executive, David Calhoun, as under his predecessor, Dennis Muilenburg, who was ousted at the end of last year following repeated delays in getting the plane back into service.

The latest timeline anticipates the Federal Aviation Administration won’t finish work to lift its March 2019 grounding order until late October or early November, because the agency has decided to ask for public comments before finalising software and hardware changes. Regulators overseas could take days or weeks longer to concur in those decisions.

Completing pilot training and maintenance checks — and obtaining final FAA approval for those tasks for individual airlines — is expected to stretch well into December, according to the officials. Only then will the MAX — responsible for two fatal crashes that took 346 lives — be ready to return to commercial service.

The timetable still could speed up and MAX operations could resume earlier, these officials said, though that isn’t the expectation of some who are closely monitoring the process. Before the FAA detailed the next steps in approving the MAX on Tuesday, at least one major airline’s schedule planned for the MAX to re-enter service by mid-December, a source said.

Problems related to ground-simulator testing by a cadre of international pilots could complicate or further stretch out the timeline. The start of passenger flights could slip to February or beyond, according to one industry official briefed on the details, given the challenges of working through the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.

A Boeing spokesman said the company was working closely with the FAA and other international regulators to “meet their expectations as we work to safely return the 737 MAX to service,” noting that those regulators would determine the schedule.

The FAA has repeatedly said it doesn’t have a timetable and won’t authorise passenger flights until all safety questions have been resolved. On Tuesday, the agency said it “continues to follow a deliberate process and will take the time it needs to thoroughly review Boeing’s work”.

Securing regulatory approval of various software and hardware fixes has been hampered by the coronavirus pandemic, with FAA officials working from home and the agency facing challenges related to scheduling US and foreign pilots to participate in ground-simulator testing. Previously, Mr Calhoun anticipated the MAX to be cleared for flight by the third quarter.

In addition to some 400 MAX jets already delivered to customers around the globe, Boeing is saddled with roughly that many other planes that have been built but not yet delivered to airlines.