The US aviation regulator has indicated that the Boeing 737 Max might return to service later than airlines had hoped.
US Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) acting director general Dan Elwell said if it took a year for the grounding order to be lifted “so be it”.
International aviation regulators weremeeting yesterday to discuss the 737 Max’s return to service.
The plane was grounded in March after two crashes in five months in which 346 people died.
Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary said earlier this week that he expected the 737 Max to receive approval by late June or early July.
Mr Elwell was asked by reporters whether it was realistic that the 737 MAX could be flying again by the summer.
“If you said October I wouldn’t even say that, only because we haven’t finished determining exactly what the training requirements will be.
“If it takes a year to find everything we need to give us the confidence to lift the [grounding] order so be it.”
He said discussions with Boeing over approving the safety update were “a constant give and take until it is exactly right. It’s taking as long as it takes to be right. I’m not tied to a timetable”.
One decision the FAA has yet to make is whether or not to require pilots to undergo simulator training for the safety update.
Aviation regulators from 33 countries, including the UK, Europe and China, are meeting in Texas.
The meeting, led by the FAA, could set out a timetable for when the aircraft can return to service.
The regulator said it would provide its “safety analysis that will form the basis for our return to service decision process”.
The FAA also said it “will provide safety experts to answer any questions participants have related to their respective decisions to return the fleet to service”.
Boeing has developed a software update for the Manoeuvring Characteristics Augmentation System (Mcas) on the 737 Max – a new feature on the jet designed to improve the handling of the plane and to stop it pitching up at too high an angle.
Mcas has been linked to both the Ethiopian Airlines crash in March, which killed 157 passengers and crew, and the Lion Air disaster in Indonesia at the end of October, in which 189 people perished. –BBC
