China orders its airlines to ground all Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft after two fatal crashes involving that model in the past five months
The recent aircraft crash has caused 157 deaths, crushing five minutes only after takeoff.
The Boeing 737 Max 8 crash was the second one in a span of less than five months and claimed 32 Kenyan lives among other nationals.
The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) noted that both the Ethiopian Airlines crash on Sunday and a Lion Air crash in Indonesia, late October, had involved the most recent delivered Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft that crashed soon after takeoff.
The CAAC, at 9 a.m., notified the Chinese air carriers that they had nine hours to take the planes out of service.
Websites that track flights revealed that the Chinese airlines were switching Boeing 737-800s with other aircraft on Monday morning on routes the aircrafts had previously operated.
China is among the loyal users of the new Boeing jets, so far, and has had a good number of the jets delivered compared to other countries.
Boeing, has, in turn, put off its external debut of the 777X plane which was scheduled on Wednesday and sent out a statement conveying its condolences stating that it was ‘deeply saddened’ by the Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 accident.
China, however, stands to benefit from the tragedies in Ethiopia and Indonesia commercially as it owns a company, Comac C919, which seeks to compete with Boeing and Airbus.
The C919 is expected to deliver planes in 2021 and has already attracted hundreds of orders from air carriers in China despite not getting overseas clients. Airlines might have to contend with Airbus in the meantime.