Chinese Deliveries of 737 MAX Aircraft Could Be Coming Soon

Boeing made its first direct delivery to China since 2019, piquing investor interest as hopes of wider deliveries increase.

The aircraft was a 787 Dreamliner, not quite the firm's best-selling bread & butter 737 MAX, but the handover is a good sign that things may be returning back to normal in the near future. The Aircraft, a -9 bound for Juneyao Airlines, took off from Everett Paine Field in Washington state Bound for Shanghai in the late morning on December 21st. The news bounced Boeing shares up a smidge, less than 2% but enough to indicate that people are watching the manufacturer for signs of health even now.

The move brought out the financial class as they put on their monacles and assessed the situation. China has not accepted the 737 MAX after the start of its 2019 brouhaha, when botched procedures (and, according to rumor, a bit of spaghetti code) resulted in some high-profile crashes of new 737 MAXes. The type has been revised and adjusted to regulatory approval across the west, but China has yet to accept the changes as reason enough to accept deliveries of the Boeing best-seller. They have allowed its operation in the country for some time, but new additions to domestic Chinese fleets remained on ice even after 4 years.

Whether they do so out of a sense of safety for the traveling public, or a sense of domestic protectionism isn't quite clear - but China's narrowbody airliner, the Comac C919 took revenue-generating flight for the 1st time last May. Given the ubiquity of the 737 platform around the world, it wouldn't be too out of the norm for Chinese bureaucrats to drag their feet in the hopes of supporting their own homegrown industry. The Comac aircraft has a backorder book numbering somewhere north of 1,200 aircraft, with deliveries stretching out over the next decade.

But in any case, the country needs planes - and China may not have enough breathing room to wait around for domestic manufacturing to build enough to support their growing middle class travel market. Whispers say that the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC), has told Boeing to expect the approval, allowing them to prep MAXes for delivery once it's granted. 

FMI: www.caac.gov.cn