Colombia’s civil aviation authority said on Wednesday it would not allow Boeing 737 MAX 8 planes to fly into its airspace after the grounding of the aircraft by several nations. The authority said no Colombian airline operates the B737 MAX 8 aircraft but after consultation with other aviation authorities, including the US FAA, it would not allow the model to enter its airspace. Earlier on Wednesday, Panama’s Copa Holdings SA said it would voluntarily suspend operations of its six Boeing 737 MAX 9 aircraft. Aeromexico and Aerolineas Argentinas SA have voluntarily decided not to fly the aircraft.<br/>
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The FAA said Wednesday it plans to open a proceeding into two fatal Boeing Co 737 MAX 8 plane crashes after it said data showed “some similarities” in the Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines crashes. The FAA gave an emergency order, temporarily grounding the planes over the two crashes “that warrant further investigation of the possibility of shared cause.” The decision was made after “new information from the wreckage concerning the aircraft’s configuration just after takeoff ... taken together with newly refined data from satellite-based tracking of the aircraft’s flight path.”<br/>
Congress plans to scrutinize why the US waited so many days to ground all Boeing 737 MAX jets involved in Sunday’s crash in Ethiopia as other countries and airlines acted more quickly. The FAA said the order Wednesday was the result of “new evidence collected at the site and analyzed today” and “newly refined satellite data” that Canada had cited earlier in its decision to halt flights. The FAA did not disclose the new evidence at the scene but said it was “the missing pieces” that aligned the track of the two fatal Boeing 737 MAX 8 crashes since October. For decades, the US has led the world in aviation safety, often setting standards that were later adopted by other countries. The agency came under heavy criticism from US lawmakers and others who questioned why the FAA waited so long to ground the Boeing 737 MAX. FAA officials plan to brief lawmakers Thursday, two people familiar with the matter told Reuters. While President Donald Trump announced the ban on television, acting FAA Administrator Dan Elwell said he made the decision with the support of Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao. “We were resolute in our position that we would not take action until we had data to support taking action,” Elwell told reporters. “That data coalesced today and we made the call.”<br/>
The US expects it will take months before a software fix for Boeing 737 Max planes is complete, the acting administrator of the FAA said Wednesday, adding that he does not know how long the country’s grounding of the aircraft will last. Acting administrator Dan Elwell said that the “black boxes” from Sunday’s Ethiopian Airlines plane crash are headed to France later on Wednesday.<br/>
The United States grounded Boeing’s money-spinning 737 MAX aircraft on Wednesday over safety fears after an Ethiopian Airlines plane crash that killed 157 people, leaving the world’s largest planemaker facing its worst crisis in years. The US FAA cited new satellite data and evidence from the scene of Sunday’s crash near Addis Ababa for its decision to join Europe, China and other nations in suspending 737 MAX flights. The crash was the second disaster involving the 737 MAX, the world’s most-sold modern passenger aircraft, in less than five months. The acting administrator of the FAA, Daniel Elwell, said he did not know how long the US grounding of the aircraft would last. A software fix for the 737 Max that Boeing has been working on since a fatal crash last October in Indonesia will take months to complete, Elwell said. The single-aisle 737 is central to Boeing’s future in its battle with Airbus. The new variant of the 737, the fastest-selling jetliner in Boeing’s history, is viewed as the likely workhorse for global airlines for decades. “The agency made this decision as a result of the data gathering process and new evidence collected at the site and analyzed today,” the FAA said, shortly after US President Donald Trump announced the planes would be grounded. It was the second time the FAA has halted flights of a Boeing plane in six years. It grounded the 787 Dreamliner in 2013 because of problems with smoking batteries.<br/>
Airlines have cancelled nearly 2,000 flights Wednesday as a late-season winter storm is set to bring blizzard conditions to parts of the Rockies and upper Midwest. In the storm’s crosshairs is Denver, which is a major hub or base for three big carriers: Southwest, United and Frontier. Nationwide, about 1,940 flights had been canceled and another 2,700 delayed as of 4:40 pa.m. ET, according to flight-tracking service FlightAware.com. Blizzard conditions and up to a foot of snow were possible by Thursday for Denver and other parts of Colorado. All big airlines were waiving change fees, both for Denver and for numerous other cities in the path of the storm – dubbed “Ulmer” by The Weather Channel.<br/>
Bombardier and Embraer have differing views on how to replace the aging 50-seat regional jet fleet around the world. Bombardier launched the CRJ550, a re-certified variant of the CRJ700 with 50 seats to allow for the addition of a premium product, as a replacement in February, while Embraer insists that the marketplace needs a new technology aircraft. "The CRJ550 is the 50-seater replacement," said Ross Mitchell, vice-president of commercial operations at Bombardier, touting the flexibility of the CRJ family at the ISTAT Americas conference in Orlando on 12 March. The Canadian airframer launched the CRJ550 with United, whose regional partner GoJet Airlines will initially operate 50 of the aircraft for the Chicago-based carrier. The aircraft will be configured with 10 first class, 20 extra-legroom economy and 20 economy seats. Scott Kirby, president of United, said earlier in March that the economics Bombardier laid out to the airline work. While unit costs for the aircraft will be higher than for 50-seat regional jets, the unit revenue increase will be greater, he said. "I was a sceptic… but turns out [Bombardier] could make the economics work," said Kirby. Embraer, however, views the CRJ500 as a temporary solution to the 50-seat jet replacement problem. "It can be a temporary fix for pre-owned aircraft," said Rodrigo Silva e Souza, VP of marketing at Embraer Commercial Aircraft, at ISTAT Americas. "As a definitive solution for the 50-seaters, we believe it must be a new technology, a new development."<br/>