BA Boeing Co

By Andy Pasztor 

European air-safety regulators have provided a subtle but important vote of confidence for plans to eventually end the grounding of Boeing Co.'s 737 MAX jets.

And their stance could help ease the regulatory logjam that for more than a year has bedeviled the Chicago plane maker's efforts to get the MAX back in the air.

The European Union Aviation Safety Agency on Friday signaled it was satisfied with software and hardware fixes devised by Boeing -- and preliminarily approved by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration -- aimed at returning Boeing's 737 MAX fleet to commercial service late this year.

After completing their own certification flights, European safety regulators said they were analyzing data gathered during those tests without elaborating. But the agency also gave a sign it was generally comfortable with the flight results so far by simultaneously announcing its intention to participate with a group of American and international airline pilots scheduled to start a round of ground-simulator tests outside London this week.

The tests will establish binding minimum training requirements for pilots, including the length of extra ground-simulator sessions before they can slide behind the controls of revised MAX jetliners. Two fatal MAX crashes in less than five months prompted the March 2019 grounding of the global fleet.

European regulators said they continued working steadily, "in close cooperation with the FAA and Boeing, to return the Boeing 737 MAX aircraft to service as soon as possible." But they reiterated that will occur "only once we are convinced it is safe."

If the multinational tests go well, however, the 737 MAX will have cleared the last major hurdle to starting to resume operations.

Canadian aviation authorities also have independently flown test flights and are preparing to send Canadian pilots to next week's simulator sessions, which will include representatives of U.S. and Brazilian airline pilots along with FAA representatives.

When those sessions end later this month, the FAA plans to answer public comments. Agency chief Steve Dickson is slated to fly the plane and the FAA's training experts are supposed to formally establish changes to training procedures, emergency checklists and MAX manuals. A separate group of FAA-chartered outside technical experts will assess whether the software and hardware fixes meet federal safety standards.

After those steps are completed, perhaps as soon as late October, airlines will need to complete their own inspections, maintenance procedures and official operational flight checks before commercial MAX operations can resume.

Current industry and U.S. government estimates say all that could happen in time to start limited MAX operations before the end of the year. Boeing has said it expects to resume MAX deliveries sometime during the fourth quarter. The FAA has said it won't sign an order ungrounding the fleet until all safety issues are resolved.

In a break from past practice which could delay Boeing's turnover of new jets to airline customers world-wide, the FAA plans to retain authority to issue airworthiness and export certificates for all 737 MAX airplanes manufactured since the March 2019 grounding. FAA officials will perform in-person, individual reviews of such aircraft, a job that was previously delegated to Boeing. Such a process could delay a final decision in light of public-health restrictions stemming from the coronavirus pandemic.

Canadian and European regulators are expected to give the green light to the MAX days or weeks after the FAA's decision, according to industry and government officials tracking the issue. How long it will take China to follow isn't clear, particularly because Beijing officials haven't been closely involved in some of the cross-border deliberations.

U.S. and foreign pilots and regulators also have stressed that last-minute challenges and complications could extend the timeline once again, as they have disrupted various proposed timetables stretching back more than a year.

Even after the MAX resumes service, though, Boeing and the FAA will continue analyzing ways to include additional, long-term safety features on the aircraft demanded by Canadian and European authorities.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 13, 2020 11:14 ET (15:14 GMT)

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