Image: Reuters Berita 24 English - For the first time since March, China Southern Airlines Co Ltd performed test flights with a Boeing Co ...
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| Image: Reuters |
Berita 24 English - For the first time since March, China Southern Airlines Co Ltd performed test flights with a Boeing Co 737 MAX plane, according to flight tracking websites, indicating that the jet's return to China may be closer as demand recovers.
According to aviation data provider Variflight, a MAX plane registered as B-1127 took off from the airline's headquarters city of Guangzhou on Tuesday morning and landed around two hours later in the city of Nanyang in central China. At the evening, it arrived in Guangzhou.
On Saturday, the plane flew in a same manner.
A request for comment from China Southern, which operates a pilot training base in Nanyang, was not returned.
According to data from Variflight, the airline, which is the largest Chinese operator of MAX aircraft, last flew the plane on March 14, a week before a catastrophic disaster involving an earlier-generation 737 of China Eastern Airlines Corp Ltd.
Analysts see the tragedy as a setback in Boeing's efforts to rebuild confidence in China after the MAX was grounded in 2018 and 2019 due to crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia.
According to FlightRadar24 data, China Southern had not flown any other MAX jets in the previous 90 days.
The MAX flights this week come as China's aircraft industry begins to recover from a two-month-long closure of Shanghai's financial centre due to a COVID-19 epidemic - albeit a minor one by global standards.
According to the most recent figures from China Southern, demand fell 69 percent in May compared to the same month the previous year, but was less than the 80 percent drop in April.
According to data from travel giant OAG, Chinese airlines increased capacity by 8% this week compared to the previous week.
According to Reuters, the MAX's return to Chinese skies has been postponed due to low demand.
After more than two and a half years, China's aviation regulator lifted the grounding order late last year, but warned the planes would need to be upgraded and pilots would need additional training before they could return to service.
Airlines were scheduled to resume commercial MAX flights around the beginning of this year, according to the FAA at the time, but none have occurred due to the lockdown in major cities.
Before the MAX was halted, Boeing was selling a quarter of its planes to Chinese purchasers, who were the company's biggest clients.
