Should the Boeing 737-MAX fly again?

The simple answer is, yes, the Boeing 737-MAX should and, I’m certain, will fly again. But the next question is even more important: is the airline industry prepared to fly the MAX? The answer to that is neither simple nor optimistic. Let me explain.

First, here’s my perspective. I have over 5,000 hours of pilot-in-command time in the Boeing 737-800 as an American Airlines captain. When the airline began to integrate the MAX into our fleet, I went through what I would classify as a very minimal “differences” training program: this is different; this functions in a new way that is actually better though counter-intuitive; this is completely different and ultimately, muscle memory and patterned responses must all be relearned. And that half-day of “training” was actually six months before we’d even put the first MAX into flight ops. Like anyone could or would

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This entry was posted on March 15, 2021 at 1:46 pm and is filed under air travel, airline, airline pilot, airline pilot blog with tags air travel, an airline pilot’s life, aviation, flight, flying, pilot. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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This entry was posted on June 5, 2021 at 12:45 pm and is filed under air travel, airline, airline industry, airline passenger, airline pilot, airline pilot blog, aviation with tags air travel, airline, airline pilot blog, airliner, airlines, an airline pilot’s life, flight crew, pilot. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0