Bengaluru, Mar 13: Post the Ethiopian plane crash, countries and airlines around the globe ground their 737 Max planes, but Boeing continues to claim its planes are safe to fly. After the second crash of a 737 Max 8 plane in less than five months, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Australia, Indonesia, China and other countries have grounded their Boeing planes.
The Boeing 737 MAX is an American narrow-body aircraft series designed and produced by Boeing Commercial Airplanes as the fourth generation of the Boeing 737, succeeding the Boeing 737 Next Generation (NG). The new 737 series was launched on August 30, 2011. It performed its first flight on January 29, 2016. The new series gained FAA certification on March 8, 2017.
As of January 2019, Boeing had 5,011 firm orders from 78 identified customers for the 737 MAX. The top three identified airline customers for the 737 MAX are Southwest Airlines with 280 orders, flydubai with 251 orders, and Lion Air with 251 orders. The first new series aircraft, a MAX 8, was delivered to Malindo Air on May 16, 2017.