Ethiopian Airlines is due to resume flying the Boeing 737 MAX plane on Tuesday, but opinions are divided on the airline’s first flight using the model since a crash nearly three years ago forced regulators to ground the fleet globally.
In March 2019 a flight to Nairobi crashed in a field six minutes after take-off from Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa killing all 157 passengers and crew. The accident followed another incident five months earlier, when the same model crashed in Indonesia, killing 189 people.
→ China Southern Airlines completes Boeing 737 MAX test flight.
The airline will fly a demonstration flight around Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa’s highest mountain, and return to Addis Ababa with journalists, diplomats and officials onboard, the airline said.
Some relatives of those killed in the Ethiopian Airlines crash were angered by the decision to resume flying the 737 MAX, Reuters reported.
“I will never fly in a MAX and certainly if I find myself booked into a MAX, I will have to cancel that flight,” said Tom Kabau, a Kenyan lawyer who lost his 29-year-old brother George in the crash.
→ Boeing 737 Max lands for first time in Antarctica.
Ethiopian Airlines said in a statement on Jan. 22 that the decision came “after intense recertification” by multiple regulatory bodies.
“We have taken enough time to monitor the design modification work and the more than 20 months of rigorous rectification process … our pilots, engineers, aircraft technicians, cabin crew are confident of the safety of the fleet,” the airline’s CEO Tewolde Gebremariam said in a December statement.
Photo: LLBG Spotter/Wikimedia
Related Topics
Avianca Expands Its Business Class Experience to Over 80 International Routes in the Americas
Arajet Announces Direct Flights Between Punta Cana and Córdoba, Argentina
Porter Airlines Announces Flights to Mexico, the Caribbean, and Costa Rica from Canada for Winter
LATAM Launches Two New Routes Between Brazil and Argentina
Plataforma Informativa de Aviación Comercial con 13 años de trayectoria.