First Boeing 737 MAX delivered to China since 2019 lands in Guangzhou

The first Boeing 737 MAX delivered to China since 2019 landed Saturday at Guangzhou's Baiyun International Airport, according to tracking website Flightradar24.

The aircraft, a 737 MAX 8 belonging to China Southern Airlines, landed at 10:23 am local time (0223 GMT), according to the website.

Boeing has rated China a crucial growth market, but deliveries ceased throughout the lengthy grounding of the 737 MAX following two deadly crashes in 2018 and 2019.

The delivery of the plane to China is a rare bright spot for the American company, which is facing intensifying scrutiny over its quality control practices in the aftermath of a near-catastrophic Alaska Airlines flight three weeks ago.

A panel blew off one of the carrier's Boeing 737 MAX 9s mid-flight, leaving a hole in the fuselage and forcing an emergency landing.

Alaska Airlines resumed flights with its 737 MAX 9 fleet on Friday, after sweeping inspections.

The January 5 incident followed months of earlier, smaller problems with the same aircraft.

The Alaska Airlines episode represents the most serious operational problem for Boeing since the crashes in 2018 and 2019, which resulted in 346 casualties.

China was among the first countries to ground the plane after the two fatal accidents involving its flight control software and was the last major Boeing market to rescind the ban.

Boeing executives have at times suggested that diplomatic tensions between Beijing and Washington played a role in the pause on deliveries of new jets even after Chinese officials moved to allow MAX planes already in China to resume service.

In addition, China's zero-tolerance Covid-19 policies in the first three years of the pandemic had "reduced demand for airplanes in general", Boeing chief executive Dave Calhoun said in 2022.

But in December, China's Juneyao Airlines took delivery of a 787 Dreamliner, the first Boeing craft to be delivered since 2019.

The new 737 MAX 8, meanwhile, left Seattle this week and made stopovers on the islands of Hawaii and Saipan en route to China, according to flightradar24.

Boeing last September forecast that China will need 8,560 new commercial planes through 2042, accounting for 20 percent of the world's airplane demand.

The company said last year it had more than 80 737 MAX jets already built, but not delivered, to designated Chinese carriers.

Beijing hopes its new domestically produced passenger jet, the C919, will challenge foreign models like the Boeing 737 MAX and Airbus A320, though many of its parts are sourced from abroad.

The C919 made its debut outside mainland China in December when it was put on display at Hong Kong International Airport.

Alaska Airlines' Boeing 737 MAX9 resumes flight

Alaska Airlines gradually resumed flights with its Boeing 737 MAX 9 fleet on Friday, three weeks after a mid-flight blowout of a panel and emergency landing prompted sweeping inspections of the aircraft, the company said.

The first trip was flight 1146 from Seattle to San Diego, which left 90 minutes past its scheduled 2:20 pm departure time and arrived in California at 6:14 pm.

The voyage comes after the Federal Aviation Administration on Wednesday announced a maintenance and inspection program to clear the MAX 9 to resume service.

Alaska Airlines said it expects inspections on its fleet of 65 MAX 9 planes to be completed by the end of next week, allowing for a resumption of its schedule.

"Each of our 737-9 MAX will return to service only after the rigorous inspections are completed and each plane is deemed airworthy according to FAA requirements," the company said.

"The individual inspections are expected to take up to 12 hours per aircraft."

The FAA grounded 171 MAX 9 planes with a similar configuration to the one in the January 5 incident, in which a door plug blew out mid-flight.

While nobody was seriously injured in the incident, inspectors have said the episode could have been catastrophic.

The grounding resulted in 3,000 Alaska Airlines flight cancellations in January. The company said Thursday that it expects a $150 million hit from the grounding.

United Airlines, which has the largest fleet of Boeing models affected by the grounding order, said Thursday that the first flight of one of its aircraft was scheduled for Sunday, but did not rule out an earlier return to service.

The US Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), tasked with determining the circumstances surrounding the January 5 incident, told AFP on Friday that one of its investigators was due to return to Boeing's Renton plant in Washington state the same day.

The team of investigators will establish a chronology from the production stages to the in-flight accident, the agency said.

A report on the investigation is expected next week.