- American Airlines performed the first scheduled passenger flight in 21 months of the Boeing 737 Max in the United States on Tuesday, from Miami to New York.
- The uneventful flight marked the beginning of a new chapter for the aircraft that aims to restore the confidence of the traveling public.
- Airlines like American are eager to fly the plane to take advantage of their economy and gain their support.
- The aircraft was suspended for 20 months after two fatal accidents that killed 346 passengers.
- Visit the Business Insider home page for more stories.
The Boeing 737 Max saga is finally over for American Airlines as the aircraft’s first flight with paying passengers just landed safely at New York’s LaGuardia Airport after a 3-hour flight from Miami.
American Flight 718, a likely homage to one of New York’s area codes, left Miami on board only on a routine East Coast flight with only 83 passengers, including American Airlines President Robert Isom on Tuesday -market. The aircraft soared to 39,000 feet while hugging the shore, data from Flightradar 24 show, and prepared for the familiar but monumental journey that would represent a second chance for the ill-fated aircraft.
It was one of 11 daily flights that American would operate between the two cities, but without a doubt the most attended flight of the day, being the first to carry paying passengers on the jet in the USA since March 2019. The two-year aircraft in operation the flight was delivered to American in May 2018, according to Planespotters.net, but has been standing on the ground longer than it was flying, enduring a 20-month stranding alongside 24 countrymen.
The weeks leading up to this first flight saw American working anxiously to return its Max aircraft to flight service, beginning with the implementation of the corrections required by the Federal Aviation Administration. As soon as its first aircraft were in compliance, American started demonstration flights with employees and the media, including senior Business Insider reporter David Slotnick.
It’s the day American has been waiting for since March 2019, but Max’s story started long before that, with a call from then American Airlines CEO Gerard Arpey to Boeing in 2011. Arpey pressured Boeing to produce a new efficient fuel aircraft to rival the next generation A320neo aircraft produced by Airbus, which American was considering buying at the time.
American was placing a massive order for hundreds of new planes and Boeing was in danger of being left out if it didn’t act quickly. The manufacturer was considering a clean aircraft, but American forced its hand to pull the trigger on a re-powered version of the popular 737 Next Generation, and the result was the Boeing 737 Max we know today.
“American is pleased to be the first airline to commit to the new offering of the Boeing 737 family, which is expected to provide a new level of economic efficiency and operational performance, pending final confirmation of the program by Boeing,” the company said in a statement. commit to Max before being known as Max.
As Boeing soon discovered, however, developing the new jet was not as simple as giving it new engines with low fuel consumption, as the aircraft’s design needed to be adjusted. The new engine placement caused the plane to lift and fly differently than the current generation 737s, prompting Boeing to install a quasi-autopilot system known as the Maneuvering Feature Increase System to tilt the plane down , without the pilots’ knowledge.
It was important that Max flew exactly like its predecessor, so that pilots could fly interchangeably with very little additional training. This was a key selling feature of the aircraft, as it could keep training costs low for airlines.
An airline like American could train its pilots on the Boeing 737 using the existing training scheme and only require pilots to undergo minimal computer-based training to fly the Max at limited additional cost to the airline. It is not uncommon, as Airbus has a similar configuration for its Airbus A320 and A320neo family aircraft, since the cockpits are almost identical.
But the system ended up working against Boeing, as the sensor failures were inadvertently activated and caused the crash of two planes carrying a total of 346 people. Boeing spent more than a year working on repairs before the Federal Aviation Administration was satisfied enough to start test flights in late September.
FAA administrator Steve Dickson, a former airline pilot, was in charge of one of them to personally insure the safety of the aircraft. His agency had been investigated for not properly regulating Boeing, mismanaging the 737 Max certification process and, more recently, mistreating the recertification process, as a report by the United States Senate found.
Read More: The 16 most outrageous things Boeing employees have said about the company, the 737 Max program and each other in internal emails released
Building Max in the USA
American is the first airline in the United States to resume service with what is arguably the most famous aircraft of the modern era, racing to launch the aircraft in 2020 ahead of its competitors. Gol Linhas Aéreas do Brasil was the first airline to fly Max again, operating its first flight on December 9, followed by Aeromexico on December 29.
United Airlines will not fly the aircraft for another month, planning to fly the Max from Houston and Denver as of February 11, 2021. Southwest Airlines, while maintaining the largest fleet of Boeing 737 Max before the pandemic, has not yet announced an early date or loaded the aircraft in its schedule, show the latest data from Cirium.
Alaska Airlines has a provisional start date of March 1, 2021, for the aircraft on which it will fly on the West Coast. The first model is due to arrive in Alaska in January, after which the airline promised extensive evidence of more than 50 hours over 19,000 miles.
Richard Aboulafia, vice president of analysis for the Teal Group, told Business Insider that there are two likely reasons for American’s haste to restore Max’s service: fuel prices and seasonality. The aircraft has economic benefits that airlines cannot ignore and Max can protect itself against rising fuel prices thanks to its fuel efficiency.
“There is a concern that fuel prices are going up again and could go up again with the recovery,” said Aboulafia.
American is also basing the aircraft in Miami, which has experienced a wave of travelers looking to escape the cities most affected by the pandemic. Having Max can help increase margins on routes to South Florida and other popular locations like St. Thomas and St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands, where American plans to fly the jet in January.
All four U.S. airlines flying the Boeing 737 Max, however, have promised flexibility for passengers who prefer not to fly the aircraft. Passengers on the aircraft can make free changes to other aircraft.
The success of the first flight starts the long road to restoring consumer confidence in the jet. While some see the aircraft as the “most examined single jet in history,” as Aboulafia said, others are actively avoiding it, as Max has retained the staying power in the traveling public’s mind, unlike any other aircraft on the ground in the last years.
American will fly the plane exclusively between New York and Miami until January 5, 2021, when more routes will see the plane. And the name Max is not ruling out many, as the flight back from New York to Miami is supposedly “Reserved solid.”