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A 45-minute flight Wednesday from Dallas-Fort Worth to Tulsa was more about proving a point than it was about testing the airworthiness of the long-grounded Boeing 737 Max.
Fort Worth-based American Airlines, which will be the first airline to put paying passengers back on the plane, began a series of demonstration flights this week by putting its own executives, members of the news media and employees on Max jets as a show of confidence that the aircraft has overcome the problems that led to its worldwide grounding.
On Wednesday morning, about 120 journalists and employees boarded one of the jets, which have been grounded for more than 20 months, for an uneventful short flight to Tulsa, where American’s massive maintenance base is readying the company’s fleet of 24 Max planes.
The night before, American CEO Doug Parker; his wife, Gwen; and a handful of executives had taken their own trip before sharing their 737 Max experience on Instagram.
American will fly the 737 Max months ahead of its competitors at Dallas-based Southwest Airlines and Chicago-based United Airlines, which both plan to wait well into 2021 to train pilots before putting the plane back into service. The training includes software that has been fixed to address flaws that were blamed for two crashes that killed 346 people.
American’s first passenger revenue flight is slated for Dec. 29 from Miami International Airport to LaGuardia International Airport in New York City. The airline has scheduled only a handful of Max flights after that, all along that Miami-New York route. It then plans to slowly add more Max planes into its schedule.
“For 20 months, Boeing 737 MAX aircraft around the world have been grounded. Our hearts go out to the families of the victims whose lives have been lost, and we will never forget the tragedy that changed their lives forever,” Parker wrote in his Instagram post Tuesday night.
“I’ve long said that when American Airlines pilots — who are the best in the business — are comfortable and confident in flying the Max, so am I.”
The 737 Max was grounded in March 2019 after plane crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia were tied to faulty software systems meant to stabilize the model with its larger engines. Investigations into the crashes and the jets revealed a series of missteps and questionable decisions that damaged the credibility of both Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration, the U.S. agency that had certified the planes.
Nearly 200 jets worldwide were pulled from service, and the FAA is the only regulator to give the jets approval to fly again, issuing its final clearance this week and approving flight training plans for American.
“In our industry, safety comes above all else,” Parker wrote. “When that safety is in question, we band together to improve. Now, after the most extensive safety review in commercial aviation history, the 737 Max has been recertified.”
American has its reasons for bringing back the plane. The 737 Max is about 15% more fuel efficient than its predecessor, the 737 NG. Boeing also says the larger engines are 40% quieter than the older ones.
The jets’ return isn’t without controversy and skepticism. Southwest Airlines, the largest owner of 737 Max jets, with 34, said surveys have shown that about a quarter of customers are uncomfortable flying on the Max, but it expects that reluctance to decrease over time.
American plans to give customers advance notification if they are scheduled for a Max flight or if they are switched to one of the jets. Customers will be allowed to change flights if they feel uncomfortable.
“If the customer doesn’t want to fly on the 737 Max, they won’t have to,” said American’s chief operating officer, David Seymour.
American is leaning heavily on pilots, who will be available on the initial flights to answer questions for wary passengers.
“When the chain of safety breaks, it’s up to us in the industry to mend it and bring it back,” said Pete Gamble, who piloted Wednesday’s demonstration flight to Tulsa. He has been a member of the Allied Pilots Association’s return-to-service committee.
American Airlines pilots will go through nearly five hours of training, including two on a simulator, before being cleared to fly the recertified 737 Max.
Captain Ted Rogachuck, a 737 tech pilot for American, said pilots have confidence in Boeing’s software fixes. The plane’s Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, or MCAS, was designed as a safety mechanism that would take over and automatically correct for a plane entering a stall.
“If the same problem happened again, the system wouldn’t have the same ability, and our pilots have been trained on how to stop the MCAS software,” Rogachuck said.
American is also trying to show that the planes are running well after nearly two years on the ground. Most of the changes to the Max have been software updates. Still, American said it had spent about 64,000 worker hours maintaining the planes since the grounding.
American parked its 737 Max jets in Tulsa and in Roswell, N.M., while the carrier waited for recertification. During that time, the planes had to be started every 10 days, tires had to be rotated, and the cabins had to be sealed to stop heat and humidity from damaging them.
Despite the aviation industry’s confidence, families of crash victims and consumer advocates have blasted Boeing and the airlines for bringing the 737 Max back. They say there wasn’t enough transparency in the recertification process.
“There are several questions that need to be asked: Is the Max safer than the 737 NG, which was the predecessor of the Max?” said Chris Moore, who lost a daughter in the Ethiopia crash in March 2019. “Is it ‘safe’ only because it meets the regulations that grandfather in approval of hazards and antiquated systems?”
Moore wonders how the aviation industry and its watchdogs would respond if a third Max crash were to occur.
“What would a third crash do to this fleet? For the aviation industry?” he asked. “What does accountability look like if there’s a third designer-related crash?”
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Journey back for Boeing’s 737 Max begins with American Airlines demo flights - The Dallas Morning News
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