Grounded China Southern Airlines Boeing 737 MAX aircraft parked in a line at Urumqi airport, in China’s western Xinjiiang region on June 5, 2019.
Greg Baker | AFP | Getty Images
A Boeing 737 MAX made its first passenger flight in China in nearly 4 years on Friday, marking a serious milestone within the U.S. planemaker’s try and rebuild its business on the planet’s second-largest aviation market.
The China Southern Airlines domestic flight from Guangzhou to Zhengzhou departed at 12:45 p.m. (0445 GMT) using a MAX plane, in keeping with flight tracking website FlightRadar24.
The perfect-selling Boeing model was grounded in March 2019 after fatal crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia, but returned to service all over the world starting in late 2020 after modifications to the aircraft and pilot training.
China is the last major market to resume flying the MAX amid ongoing trade tensions with america, and the return comes as domestic travel demand rebounds after it abandoned zero-Covid policies.
Foreign airlines began flying the MAX to China in October 2022, in an indication the primary country to ground the model after the crashes was loosening its policies.
China Southern had scheduled a return to business service for the 737 MAX in October 2022 but didn’t apply it to the planned flights.
Boeing and China Southern didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.
Top Chinese customer
Chinese airlines had 97 of the narrowbody planes before the grounding, in keeping with Cirium data in 2019. China Southern is the most important Chinese customer for the model, with 50 on order, of which 34 have been delivered.
Boeing in October said it had one other 138 planes manufactured for Chinese carriers that were in america waiting to be delivered. It said it had begun remarketing the jets to other carriers given there have been no concrete signs that Chinese airlines would accept the planes within the near term.
China’s domestic aviation market had been depressed in 2022 due to sporadic lockdowns designed to quash Covid-19 but demand is rising now that Covid controls have been abandoned.
Citi analyst Jason Gursky said the return of the MAX was step one for Boeing in normalizing its China operations, and should open the door to deliveries of recent planes.
“Boeing suggested at its November 2022 investor day that its long-term financial targets don’t contemplate deliveries of recent aircraft into China,” he said in a note to clients on Wednesday, adding that a change in that situation would make its targets significantly less dangerous.
Boeing has been lagging far behind Airbus in deliveries into the world’s biggest aircraft market, largely due to MAX grounding.
In 2022, Boeing delivered eight airplanes to China while Airbus delivered greater than 100.
Boeing has been virtually frozen out of recent orders from China since 2017, whereas state-owned airlines last yr placed a mega-order for nearly 300 Airbus planes.
Each Western manufacturers also face a fresh challenge out there from the Chinese-made C919 narrowbody jet that was certified last yr, though it’ll take time to ramp up production.