Behind HNA's flight, the Boeing 737MAX will have to wait

The Economic Observer Deng Jun/Wenhai Airlines' tuning flight has caused a hot discussion in civil aviation circles about the Boeing 737 MAX8, which has been banned in China for nearly three years - when will the Boeing 737 MAX resume flights?

At 16:33 on January 9, 2022, a Boeing 737 MAX8 (flight number: HU8003) with the number B-207T of Hainan Airlines was transferred from Taiyuan Wusu Airport to Haikou. At 19:22, the plane landed at Haikou Airport.

A number of civil aviation industry insiders said in an interview with the Economic Observer that the transfer flight is not a passenger flight, not a commercial operation, and the 737MAX8 wants to officially resume commercial operation in China, and still has to complete the established approval process previously stipulated by the Civil Aviation Administration of China.

Why fly

According to the requirements of the Civil Aviation Administration of China, the 737MAX8 must meet the following three conditions for resuming flights in China: the design changes of the aircraft must be approved for airworthiness, the pilot must also undergo effective training to fly the aircraft again, and the investigation conclusions of the two air accidents must be clear and the improvement measures must be effective.

In fact, since the 737 MAX8 began to stop commercial operations in March 2019, the 737 MAX8 has not stopped flying in the airspace of China, but only if it cannot carry passengers or pull goods.

Chen Jianguo, a senior captain who has performed more than 13,500 civil aviation flight hours at eight Chinese and foreign airlines and has long studied the 737MAX, said that because of the long parking, some airlines have transferred the 737MAX to several remote airports in the northwest, where the climate is either dry or the parking fee is cheap.

On December 3, 2021, Yang Zhenmei, director of the Airworthiness Department of the Civil Aviation Administration of China, revealed that the airworthiness directive of the 737MAX8 was issued on December 2. Subsequent domestic airlines will also complete the aircraft modification, suspension of aircraft recovery, pilot training and other work, after the supplementary operation qualification approval, it is expected to resume the commercial operation of the existing domestic fleet at the end of 2021 or early 2022, and restart the introduction of new aircraft.

Chen Jianguo revealed that airlines need to make relevant preparations for software upgrades, hardware changes, manual revisions, and pilot training for aircraft in accordance with the airworthiness directive. Except for pilot training, which needs to be carried out on the 737MAX8 dedicated simulator, other changes will be made quickly, and all changes can be completed within a week at the earliest.

Chen Jianguo believes that if the 737MAX8 is to resume operations, in these remote airports, it will not necessarily be suitable for completing all maintenance and obtaining airworthiness instructions, so in the airworthiness directive, aircraft are allowed to apply for a charter flight certificate and fly to a location where the relevant measures of the airworthiness directive can be completed, such as flying back to the main maintenance base.

Chen Jianguo's above views have also been confirmed by a HNA staff member. The person revealed that Haikou Airport is one of the main maintenance bases of Hainan Airlines, and the purpose of HNA's transfer is to repair this aircraft to complete the relevant links of the airworthiness directive.

Zhao Wei, a professor at the Civil Aviation Cadres and Highways College of China, told the Economic Observer, "From the experience of foreign countries, from the state-licensed 737MAX to resume flights to the official resumption of airlines, it generally takes more than half a year." Moreover, there was also a question of compensation before the resumption of flights. ”

According to reports, Southwest Airlines has filed a lawsuit against Boeing, which claims that the grounding of the 737MAX caused more than $100 million in economic damages to its pilots, and demanded compensation from Boeing.

In terms of Chinese airlines, in 2019, after China Eastern Airlines took the lead in filing a claim against Boeing for the 737MAX grounding incident, Air China, China Southern Airlines and Xiamen Airlines successively filed a claim against Boeing for the losses caused by the 737MAX grounding and the order could not be delivered on time, and Shanhang also claimed against Boeing for the 737MAX grounding. "The relevant compensation of Chinese airlines has not yet been announced." Zhao Wei said.

The Economic Observer learned from multiple channels that china eastern airlines, china southern airlines and air china have no news on the progress of the appeal claims.

It will still take months to return

Since the 737MAX was grounded worldwide, Boeing began to improve the MCAS system— a system used to provide consistent aircraft maneuverability under a very specific set of abnormal flight conditions, which relies on input data from a single sensor to monitor the angle of attack of the aircraft in flight. In both accidents, an angle-of-attack sensor provided the MCAS with the wrong information that caused it to start. In two accidents, the sensor repeatedly provided the wrong large angle of attack data, and MCAS repeatedly started, eventually resulting in an air crash.

After the MCAS system was improved, Boeing tested it in accordance with the requirements and procedures of the flight regulatory authorities in various countries and regions, and obtained "re-flight" in several countries and regions.

On November 18, 2020, local time in the United States, the US Air Traffic Control Administration announced on its official website that after following a comprehensive and systematic safety review process, it approved the 737MAX to resume flights.

Subsequently, Brazil, Europe, India, Malaysia, Singapore, Japan, Indonesia and other regions and countries and regions have also approved the 737MAX to resume flights. Ethiopian Airlines CEO Tewolde Ge-bremariam said it plans to return to the 737MAX in February 2022.

China, the first country in the world to issue a no-fly order on the 737MAX8, has also conducted rigorous review and testing of its resumption of flights by using the modified aircraft for flight tests in Mainland China.

According to relevant media reports, on August 11, 2021, a modified 737MAX civil aviation airliner numbered N7201S took off from Washington, USA, arrived in Shanghai via Hawaii, and completed a trial flight between Shanghai and Zhoushan in about 16 minutes. The plane was accompanied by dozens of pilots and technicians, including Boeing's chief pilot, as well as AIR TRAFFIC officials.

Coincidentally, the time when the 737MAX came to China to approve the test flight coincided with the imminent delivery of China's domestically produced C919 aircraft - according to the previous plan, the C919 is expected to obtain an airworthiness license at the end of 2021 and obtain a model certificate from the Civil Aviation Administration of China.

According to relevant media reports, Shanghai Pudong Airport, which guaranteed the 737MAX test flight mission on the same day, is also the base camp of comacity China, a C919 manufacturer in the test flight stage approved by the Civil Aviation Administration of China, and the 737MAX test aircraft also used the runway used when the C919 aircraft first flew four years ago.

On December 2, 2021, the Civil Aviation Administration of China issued the airworthiness directive of the 737 MAX8, which was also interpreted by some domestic civil aviation circles and media as "a key step in the resumption of 737 MAX8 flights in China".

In mid-December 2021, Fang Wei, chairman of the board of directors of Fangda Group, said at the HNA cadre and staff meeting that HNA should now study how to resume the existing suspended aircraft, do not idle, and the aircraft that need to be repaired should pay close attention to planning maintenance, gradually resume flights during the epidemic period, and resume all flights after the epidemic is over.

Chen Jianguo told the Economic Observer that according to his understanding, HNA is the first airline in China to transfer the 737MAX since the Civil Aviation Administration of China issued the airworthiness directive. However, Chen Jianguo said that even if the technical standard of resuming flight is met, it is expected that it will take several months before the 737MAX is put back into operation.

Is there any need to return to flight as soon as possible

Although the 737MAX has now taken a key step in its return to flight in China, will anyone pay for it now after two consecutive air crashes?

Chen Jianguo said that if passengers get on the plane and find that it is 737MAX, will they refuse to take the flight? What do airlines do? Does the airline need to tell in advance that the aircraft type is 737MAX? These are all problems.

Zheng Hongfeng, an expert in the civil aviation industry, told the Economic Observer that from the current overall utilization rate of domestic civil aviation narrow-body aircraft, the airline's urgent need to restore the commercial operation of the 737MAX8 needs to be marked with a question mark.

According to the statistics of Feiyou Technology, as of December 13, 2021, the overall utilization rate of domestic civil aviation narrow-body aircraft is about 6 hours / day, while on January 13, 2020, the overall utilization rate of narrow-body aircraft is about 9 hours / day.

"Judging from the current capacity of domestic airlines, the total number of seats is 644,385 seats, and even if the 737MAX8 of domestic airlines is fully resumed, it will only increase by 15,944 seats, accounting for about 2.47% of the overall seat supply." Zheng Hongfeng said that in the current situation of repeated domestic epidemics, airlines may adopt a more conservative strategy.

According to a staff member of Okay Airlines, "At present, the number of flights of Okay Airlines is small, the rate of aircraft utilization is low, and there is no urgent requirement for the resumption of flight 737 MAX8." ”

Shenzhen Airlines and Shandong Airlines also revealed to the Economic Observer that there is no substantial progress in the company's resumption of the 737 MAX8.

In addition, the grounding of the 737 MAX8 in China is a rare opportunity for the Airbus A320 series and the Chinese C919.

On March 25, 2019 local time, Airbus and China Aviation Equipment Group Corporation signed a purchase agreement involving 300 aircraft in Paris, France. According to the news released by China Aviation Equipment Group Co., Ltd., the total value of the orders is 35 billion US dollars. According to another report, 290 of the 300 aircraft include the A320 series aircraft (competitors of the 737MAX).

According to Wu Guanghui, a deputy to the National People's Congress and chief designer of the C919 large passenger aircraft, during the two sessions in 2020, the number of C919 users at home and abroad has reached 28, and the total number of orders has reached 815.

However, if C919 wants to truly open the international civil aviation market, it also needs to obtain the airworthiness certificate of the US Air Traffic Control Administration and the airworthiness certificate of the European Aviation Safety Agency, and the relevant systems of the airworthiness certificates of most countries in the world are also formulated with reference to the airworthiness certificates of the US Air Traffic Control Agency and the European Aviation Safety Agency. It is worth mentioning that Boeing participated in the formulation of the airworthiness certificate clause of the US Air Traffic Control Agency, and Airbus also participated in the formulation of the airworthiness certificate clause of the European Aviation Safety Agency.

According to the relevant agreements of the China-US Airworthiness Implementation Procedures, which came into effect on October 17, 2017, passenger aircraft produced in China have been certified airworthiness by the Civil Aviation Administration of China, and after the Civil Aviation Administration of China has filed with the US Air Traffic Control Administration, the US Air Traffic Control Administration will grant the Airworthiness Certification to Chinese passenger aircraft after a procedural review.

On September 1, 2020, the Agreement between the Government of the People's Republic of China and the European Union on the Safety of Civil Aviation and the annex "Airworthiness and Environmental Protection Verification" came into force, and two days later, on September 3, China and the EU further signed the "Technical Implementation Procedures for the Airworthiness and Environmental Protection Certification between the Civil Aviation Administration of China and the European Aviation Safety Administration" and its annex "Implementation Procedures for the Operation/Maintenance of Civil Aviation Products", which refine the content of the safety agreement and its annexes from the aspects of airworthiness verification and aircraft review cooperation. It has created a good environment for the mutual recognition of civil aviation products between China and the EU.

But as of now, the C919 has not received airworthiness certification in the United States and Europe.

As originally planned, the C919 completed its first delivery and achieved airworthiness certification by the end of 2021. On November 18, 2021, at the 2022 expert consultation forum of the Civil Aviation Administration of China, Wu Guanghui suggested that the approval and certification of C919 should continue to be included in the 2022 civil aviation work plan, and relevant resources and personnel investment should be increased to prepare for the delivery and operation of C919.

This also means that the delivery of the C919 will be delayed until 2022.