Boeing receives first 737 Max orders since 2019

Boeing said Wednesday that it has received its first orders for its 737 Max planes since last year, when it grounded them after two deadly crashes.

The company announced that Enter Air, a Polish charter airline that uses exclusively Boeing planes, ordered two 737 Maxes with the option to order two more.

“We are humbled by Enter Air’s commitment to the Boeing 737 family,” Boeing Senior Vice President of Commercial Sales Ihssane Mounir said in a statement. “We look forward to building on our decade-long partnership with Enter Air and working with the airline to safely return their full 737 fleet to commercial service.”

“Despite the current crisis, it is important to think about the future. To that end, we have agreed to order additional 737-8 aircraft. Following the rigorous checks that the 737 MAX is undergoing, I am convinced it will be the best aircraft in the world for many years to come,” Grzegorz Polaniecki, general director and board member at Enter Air, said in the statement.

Boeing said it has also finalized a settlement with Enter Air to address the economic fallout from grounding the 737 Max. Details of the settlement remain confidential but it will involve staggered compensation, Boeing said.

“In the settlement with Boeing, we agreed to revise the delivery schedule for the previously-ordered airplanes in response to current market conditions. The specific terms of the settlement are strictly confidential, but we are pleased with the way Boeing has treated us as its customer,” Polanieck said.

The two orders pale in comparison to Boeing’s July net negative orders of 836 planes, however. Customer cancellations of aircraft have run ahead of new sales for the last six months due to a combination of the problems specific to Boeing and the coronavirus pandemic, according to CNBC.

Earlier this month the Federal Aviation Administration released a 36-page report on necessary fixes and training before the 737 Max can return to the air. The airplanes have been grounded since spring of 2019.