Icelandair says it has reached a settlement with Boeing over the ongoing grounding of the 737 MAX aircraft. Besides compensation, the flag carrier of Iceland seems to have used the opportunity to rethink its future MAX fleet as well.
While the details of the agreement are not disclosed, the company’s filing to Nasdaq Iceland indicates that the company both obtained damages compensation as well as re-negotiated its remaining MAX order conditions.
Icelandair revealed that the newest settlement included compensation, which covered a “substantial” portion of the damages that it had incurred due to 737 MAX grounding, the company outlined in a statement released on August 11, 2020.
Also as part of the agreement, the Icelandic carrier renegotiated the remaining 737 MAX order. Previously planning to add ten more aircraft, the airline has now cut the order by four planes. Deliveries of the remaining six planes were presumably postponed. The company said the agreement with Boeing included a revised delivery schedule, under which the first of the remaing six 737 MAXs would now be delivered in the second quarter of 2021. The last aircraft from the batch is expected to reach the carrier’s fleet within the first three months of 2022.
Having welcomed its first MAX 8 in March 2018, the Icelandic carrier has received six newest-generation 737s as of August 11, 2020. The aircraft include five MAX 8 and one MAX 9, planespotters.net data reveals.
In March 2019, Boeing 737 MAX aircraft were grounded worldwide following two fatal crashes.
Icelandair has highlighted on multiple occasions that the Boeing 737 MAX grounding had a negative effect on its finances. In September 2019, the airline reached its first compensation agreement with the manufacturer, but claimed it covered only a fraction of total losses that arose from the grounding.