Aircraft
China Signals Imminent Return to Service of 737 Max
The Civil Aviation Administration of China has issued an AD for 737 Max operators that could return the model to Chinese skies early next year.
An Air China Boeing 737 Max 8 sits parked at Beijing Capital International Airport on March 11, 2019, a day after Chinese authorities grounded the type following the crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302. (Flickr: Creative Commons (BY-SA) by HawkeyeUK)
An Air China Boeing 737 Max 8 sits parked at Beijing Capital International Airport on March 11, 2019, a day after Chinese authorities grounded the type following the crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302. (Flickr: Creative Commons (BY-SA) by HawkeyeUK)

China’s civil aviation authority on Thursday issued an airworthiness directive (AD) that will allow operators in that country to soon return the Boeing 737 Max to service. The AD follows a more than two-and-a-half-year grounding of the narrowbody by the agency in reaction to the twin crashes of the Max in October 2018 and March 2019 and marks the start of a process that could see the airplane return to Chinese skies early next year. China's CAAC stands as the last major hurdle to the model’s full return to service among Boeing’s global customer base.