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With more than 700 Boeing 737 MAX jets grounded worldwide since March, Boeing has decided to suspend production of the aircraft type.

The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said last week it would not approve the plane’s return to service before 2020. The new year is just two weeks away (believe it or not!) and time is dragging for airline customers around the world.

The MAX was Boeing’s bestselling plane – and then two crashed, with a toll of 346 lives. Many airlines, including Virgin Australia, have the MAX on order, but will accept them only when they are officially certified safe.

Virgin Australia stresses that it “will not introduce any new aircraft to the fleet unless we are completely satisfied with its safety”.

Virgin continues: “There are currently no Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft in our fleet. We are closely monitoring the situation and will continue to work with Boeing, CASA, and other relevant authorities as more information becomes available.”

For airlines that already have the MAX, the grounding has caused the cancellation of thousands of flights, at enormous inconvenience and expense.

Boeing was initially expected to iron out a supposed software glitch fairly quickly, but as the months passed, aviation analysts have started asking questions, like “why is the process taking so long?”

Airlines that operate big Boeing fleets (like Southwest, the world’s biggest B737 operator, with an all-Boeing fleet) are reported to be considering diversifying their aircraft mix in the future.

Challengers to the MAX, such as the Airbus A320, are gaining increased attention.

Boeing yesterday issued the following statement:

Safely returning the 737 MAX to service is our top priority. We know that the process of approving the 737 MAX’s return to service, and of determining appropriate training requirements, must be extraordinarily thorough and robust, to ensure that our regulators, customers, and the flying public have confidence in the 737 MAX updates. As we have previously said, the FAA and global regulatory authorities determine the timeline for certification and return to service. We remain fully committed to supporting this process. It is our duty to ensure that every requirement is fulfilled, and every question from our regulators answered.

 Throughout the grounding of the 737 MAX, Boeing has continued to build new airplanes and there are now approximately 400 airplanes in storage. We have previously stated that we would continually evaluate our production plans should the MAX grounding continue longer than we expected. As a result of this ongoing evaluation, we have decided to prioritize the delivery of stored aircraft and temporarily suspend production on the 737 program beginning next month.

 We believe this decision is least disruptive to maintaining long-term production system and supply chain health. This decision is driven by a number of factors, including the extension of certification into 2020, the uncertainty about the timing and conditions of return to service and global training approvals, and the importance of ensuring that we can prioritize the delivery of stored aircraft. We will continue to assess our progress towards return to service milestones and make determinations about resuming production and deliveries accordingly.

 During this time, it is our plan that affected employees will continue 737-related work, or be temporarily assigned to other teams in Puget Sound. As we have throughout the 737 MAX grounding, we will keep our customers, employees, and supply chain top of mind as we continue to assess appropriate actions. This will include efforts to sustain the gains in production system and supply chain quality and health made over the last many months.

 We will provide financial information regarding the production suspension in connection with our 4Q19 earnings release in late January.

The full statement may be read on the Boeing site here.

Written by Peter Needham