Virgin Australia's first Boeing 737 MAX 8 jet is now officially part of the airline's fleet. It'll soon begin serving on Virgin's domestic and international flights – including Cairns to Tokyo, from 30 July.
Virgin Australia is the second Australian airline to add the 737 MAX to its operations, joining low-cost carrier Bonza, which launched the aircraft here in January. Have you flown on the 737 MAX with Bonza or another airline? Tell us about your experience in the comments!
Virgin Australia has marked a major milestone in its ongoing transformation, taking delivery of its first new aircraft in the latest generation Boeing 737 MAX family.
Qantas operates a fleet of Airbus A330, Airbus A380, Boeing 737 and Boeing 787 making a total of 125 aircraft. This list excludes subsidiaries Jetstar, QantasLink and Qantas Freight.
The ultimate Boeing 737 MAX question is always, 'is it safe now? '. The answer to that is a resounding yes. The plane has been described as one of the most scrutinized aircraft in aviation history, with authorities like the FAA, EASA, and many more taking a very close look at the plane.
“The airline has the right to substitute equipment,” Schiavo said. “If you could book a 737 500, and you find out it's a 737 MAX, technically they don't have to honor your request. … So you don't have a right to specify you are not going to go on a 737 MAX.”
The MAX airplane has been “recertified” by the FAA, and more than 900 of these planes are now flying around the world.
The move away from the MAX name has been a subtle process and Boeing has begun to use the name 737 MAX and 737-8(7 through 10) interchangeably. This way they are transitioning away from the MAX name toward the normal naming convention of modern Boeing aircraft.
Boeing and its 180-seat 737 MAX have been dealt a hammer blow after long-time customer Qantas abandoned the Seattle aerospace giant in favour of Europe's Airbus and its A320neo family of narrow-body jets as part of its Project Winton fleet refurbishment.
The 737 MAX will extend the Next-Generation 737 range advantage with the capability to fly more than 3,500 nautical miles (6,510 km), an increase of 340 - 570 nmi (629-1,055 km) over the Next-Generation 737.
After the FAA lifted the Max 8 and 9's grounding in November 2020, Boeing anticipated that both the Max 7 and Max 10 would be certificated by the FAA by the end of 2022. That timeline was pushed back in November of last year, when Boeing said it expected to clear the Max 7 by early 2023 and the Max 10 in early 2024.
The MAX has a new fly-by-wire spoiler system. This is officially to improve production flow, reduce weight and improve stopping distances.
What we'll be covering. Virgin Australia's first Boeing 737 MAX 8 jet is now officially part of the airline's fleet. It'll soon begin serving on Virgin's domestic and international flights – including Cairns to Tokyo, from 30 July.
The 737-800 is a member of the Next Generation family, and is itself the most produced of the Next Gen models, with nearly 5,000 civilian deliveries between 1998 and 2019. Among the 737 MAX family, the 737 MAX 8 is the 737-800's most direct replacement, although 787-800s are still widely operated.
The MAX resumed commercial flights in the U.S. in December 2020, and was recertified in Europe and Canada by January 2021.
After a 20-month review that included design and software changes as well as enhanced training, the FAA agreed in late 2020 to allow the plane to fly again.
The FAA ultimately grounded the MAX on March 13, 2019 and lifted the flight prohibition order in November 2020 after Boeing made a series of software upgrades and training changes.
Sixty-two operators have at least one active variant of the MAX. Southwest maintains the largest Boeing 737 MAX fleet, though the Ryanair Group is close to knocking the US low-cost carrier from the top.
Hong Kong: The Civil Aviation Department banned the operation of all 737 Max aircraft into, out of and over Hong Kong. Panama: The Civil Aviation Authority grounded its aircraft. Vietnam: The Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam banned Boeing 737 MAX aircraft from flying over Vietnam.
The Boeing 737 MAX has had its fair share of troubles since it entered service but has been safely flying since December 2020, with hundreds of units in the sky every day.
The Boeing 737 MAX aircrafts are returning to the skies. If there is an aircraft that you want to avoid it is this one. The 737MAX has been responsible for the deaths of 346 people in 2 separate plane accidents.
Utilizing the International Civil Aviation Organization safety occurrence data, from 2008 to 2019, these aircraft were compared in terms of occurrence type, occurrence category, phase of flight, injury level, and fatalities. It was found that Boeing had more accidents than expected, while Airbus had less (p = 0.015).
DGCA had banned the plane's operations since March 2019 after two fatal accidents killed 346 people. In October 2018, 737 Max, the newest member of Boeing's 737 narrow-body family crashed in the Java Sea shortly after takeoff from Jakarta.