Addis Ababa: A South Korean airline says it will suspend operations of its two Boeing 737 Max 8 planes, the same aircraft involved in the Ethiopian Airlines plane crash that killed 157 people.
An Eastar Jet official said Tuesday that the planes will be replaced by Boeing 737-800 planes from Wednesday on routes to Japan and Thailand. She didn’t want to be named, citing office rules.
She says the airline hasn’t found any problems, but is voluntarily grounding Boeing 737 Max 8s in a response to customer concerns. She says the planes will not be used until the completion of a government safety review on the aircraft.
An official from South Korea’s Transportation Ministry says it has yet to find any problems from safety reviews on Eastar’s planes that started Monday.
The Mideast budget airline FlyDubai says it will continue to fly Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft after reviewing a recent US regulator statement about the aircraft.
FlyDubai says that “no further action is required at this time” over the aircraft, a workhorse in the Dubai government-owned carrier’s fleet.
Australia Tuesday barred Boeing 737 MAX planes from its airspace, joining a host of countries which have blocked the model after the deadly Ethiopian Airlines crash at the weekend.
“This is a temporary suspension while we wait for more information to review the safety risks of continued operations of the Boeing 737 MAX to and from Australia,” Shane Carmody, CEO of Australia’s Civil Aviation Safety Authority, said in a statement.
“CASA regrets any inconvenience to passengers but believes it is important to always put safety first.”
Fiji Airlines is the only 737 MAX operator affected by the Australian ban, according to CASA. Singapore-based SilkAir used the planes for flights to Australia, but those were already suspended after the city-state barred the model from its airspace.
Argentina’s flagship carrier has joined airlines that have grounded their Boeing 737 Max 8 planes after the crash in Ethiopia.
Aerolineas Argentinas said late Monday it had ordered the suspension as it awaited the result of investigations into the crash of the Ethiopian Airlines plane, which killed all 157 aboard.
“For Aerolineas Argentinas, safety is the most important value,” the company said in a statement on the grounding of its five 737 Max 8 planes, out of a total fleet of 82.
Several airlines and regulators have grounded the Max 8 model, but Australia and Singapore are understood to be the first countries to ban planes from across Boeing’s Max fleet.
Airlines using the short-haul passenger jet – the same model involved in the Lion Air crash off Indonesia that killed 189 people in October – have been inundated with questions from concerned passengers since Sunday. There has been no information yet to link the Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines incidents.
Agencies
