Boeing 737 MAX is completing its initial passenger flight in China in four years

January 16, 2023: On Friday, a Boeing 737 MAX made its initial passenger flight in China in almost four years, marking a significant milestone in the U.S. planemaker’s shot to construct its business in the world’s second-largest aviation market.

The China Southern Airlines domestic aeroplane from Guangzhou to Zhengzhou is gone at 12:45 p.m., which uses a MAX plane, according to the flight tracking website FlightRadar24.

The best-selling Boeing model was based in March 2019 following fatal crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia but came back to service worldwide starting in late 2020 after aeroplane and pilot training changes.

China is the last primary market to resume going the MAX amid ongoing trade tensions with the U.S. The return is coming as the domestic travel demand rebounds after it is going zero-Covid policies.

Foreign airlines that started flying the MAX to China in 2022, in a sign the country dropped the model after the crashes, were loosening their policies.

China Southern had scheduled a comeback to commercial service for the 737 MAX in the previous year but is not using it on the decided flights.

Chinese airlines had 97 narrowbody planes before the grounding, according to Cirium data in 2019. China Southern is the most prominent Chinese customer for modelling, with 50 on order, of which 34 have been given.

Boeing had also said that it had another 138 planes constructed for Chinese carriers in the U.S. waiting to be delivered. It said it had started remarketing the jets on other pages, given there were no concrete signs that Chinese airlines would be accepting the planes soon.

China’s domestic aviation market is depressing in 2022 because of sporadic locking designed to quash Covid-19, but the value is rising now that Covid controls have been demolished.

Citi analyst Jason Gursky stated that the return of the MAX was the first step for Boeing in normalizing its China operations and may open the door to deliveries of the recent planes.

“Boeing suggested at investor day that its long-term financial targets do not reflect deliveries of recent aircraft into China,” he then stated in a note to clients, who added that a change in that situation would make its targets much less risky.

Boeing needs to catch up to Airbus in deliveries into the world’s biggest aircraft market, primarily because of the MAX grounding.

In 2022, Boeing delivered eight aeroplanes to China, while Airbus had more than 100.

Boeing has been frozen out of the recent orders from China from 2017, whereas state-owned airlines placed a mega-order for almost 300 Airbus planes in the previous year.