About 90% of Boeing's China 737 MAX jets have resumed commercial operation as of the end of June, the U.S. aircraft maker said on its official WeChat account on Wednesday. Some planes have been dispatched to regional international routes, Sherry Carbary, president of Boeing China, said in the article. The planemaker's shares rose 1.3% in U.S. premarket trading. China grounded all Boeing 737 MAX jets in the country following the crash of a 737 MAX jet operated by Ethiopian Airlines in March 2019, the second deadly accident of the model in five months.
According to official information, Chinese carriers grounded all 96 jets they had at the time. State-owned China Southern Airlines was the country's first carrier to resume flying the 737 MAX in January. Since then, Chinese airlines have been gradually reintroducing the model back to operation. In April, Boeing estimated that half of the country's MAX fleet was in operation. "By the end of June, about 90% of China's 737 MAX fleet had resumed commercial operations, with some of the aircraft placed on regional international routes connecting domestic cities to a number of destinations in Central Asia and Southeast Asia," Carbary said. Boeing, however, is yet to resume deliveries to China, a key market where it has lost ground to arch-rival Airbus in part due to geopolitical tensions between the United States and China.
The head of Boeing's commercial business said earlier this month the planemaker was not counting on China deliveries in the immediate future. Last year, Boeing said it was in discussions to re-market jets meant for Chinese customers.
But in April, China's aviation regulator published a report that Boeing viewed as a key step to resuming deliveries of its bestselling 737 MAX jets. At that time, Boeing had over 130 completed MAX jets in inventory for Chinese customers.