It has been announced by the UK Civil Aviation Authority within the United Kingdom that the Boeing 737 Max has been cleared to fly within UK airspace. This follows EASA’s lead in approving the aircraft to operate flights within Europe.
Since the Boeing 737 MAX was ungrounded by the US Federal Aviation Authority and other aviation authorities, the Boeing 737 MAX has so far completed over 2,700 flights and over 5,500 flight hours during testing and pilot training. Countries are recertifying the aircraft and the speed this is happening appears to be picking up pace, with several prominent ungrounding of the aircraft taking place in the past few weeks.
The CAA has stated that it will maintain a close eye on the Boeing 737 MAX as it returns to the skies in airspace above the United Kingdom. Currently TUI is the only airline with UK registered Boeing 737 MAXs in its fleet, of which it currently has six aircraft with further more on order, TUI has agreed to work closely with the CAA as it begins to return the aircraft back into service.
Ryanair has a large order with Boeing for the 737 MAX aircraft and this paves the way for the airline to start receiving these from the manufacturer, with these two airlines both receiving and restarting flights with the aircraft we will possibly start to see them appear at Bristol Airport in the not so distant future.
So what has changed?
According to the UK CAA the decision hasnt been taken lightly on returning the aircraft to the skies, the CAA have stated that they wouldnt have allowed the aircraft to return to service if they werent fully happy and confident the aircraft type is safe and airworthy. Since the crashes that were caused by MCAS, a software system that would override pilots inputs from erroneous data causing the aircraft to crash, the following changes have been made:
- Various software changes, so the aircraft systems use both angle of attack (AoA) sensors from either side of the aircraft
- Safeguards against MCAS activating unnecessarily
- Removal of repeat MCAS activations
- Revised limits on the MCAS command authority
- Revisions to flight crew procedures and training
- A visual alert for when the AoA sensors disagree
- Trim monitoring to prevent erroneous trim commands
Following the announcement TUI Airlines posted a statement on their website:
“We welcome EASA and the UK CAA’s decision to recertify the Boeing 737 MAX following extensive and rigorous testing of the aircraft carried out by the regulators.
The recertification in Europe and the UK follows approval by the FAA late last year which has since seen a number of airlines in the US, Canada, Central and South America resume operations with the MAX.
Following the approval by EASA and UK CAA, we can be confident that everything is now in place to ensure a safe and successful return to service. We now move to the final stages of implementing all of the regulators’ updates and improvements to our MAX fleet, as well as pilot retraining. Only once this is complete will we begin to return the MAX to service across the TUI network.
As a result of the current travel restrictions in place due to COVID and reduced demand for holidays, we currently have no plans to fly our UK MAX aircraft this winter. We will keep our customers informed as we prepare for the aircraft’s return to the skies and look forward to welcoming them onboard again soon.”
Thanks to TUI Airlines UK for their help with this article.
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