Ethiopian Airlines will reportedly reactivate its Boeing 737 MAX fleet in the upcoming February 2022.
According to the chief executive officer of Ethiopian Airlines, Tewolde Gebremariam, it took more than 20 months for the company to regain confidence in the safety issues of its Boeing 737 MAX fleet. Thereby, the carrier, whose Boeing 737 MAX 8 passenger jet crashed shortly after takeoff killing all 157 people on board in March 2019, reportedly plans to resume operations with all four jets of the type.
“We have taken enough time to monitor the design modification work and the more than 20 months of rigorous rectification process…our pilots, engineers, aircraft technicians, cabin crew are confident in the safety of the fleet,” Tewolde Gebremariam said in a statement seen by Reuters on December 27, 2021.
The CEO of Ethiopian outlined that safety is the company’s “topmost priority”, which guides the airline “every decision [it] makes and all actions [it] takes”.
The Boeing 737 MAX jets were grounded globally after 346 people died in two fatal crashes of Lion Air in October 2018 and Ethiopian Airlines in March 2019.
Both incidents were blamed on MAX software issues that pushed the jets into nosedives.