general

The US FAA distanced itself Thursday from suggestions by Boeing that its grounded 737 MAX could resume flying passengers in October, saying regulators do not have a timeline for vetting safety upgrades. Boeing CE Dennis Muilenburg told analysts Wednesday he was confident the MAX would be back in service as early as October after a certification flight with regulators in September. But the FAA's top official declined to be pinned down on Boeing's target of October or any other timeline for clearing the plane. "We don't have a timeline. Don't have October. Don't have August. Don't have 2021," acting administrator Dan Elwell said. "We have one criteria. When...the complications to it have been satisfactorily assessed, and the MAX is safe to return to service, that's the only criteria," Elwell said. <br/>

Air traffic at Amsterdam Schiphol was still disrupted Thursday after an outage at its main fuel supplier left thousands of passengers stranded at the airport the day before. KLM, the main airline at Schiphol, said it had cancelled 61 flights to and from Amsterdam Thursday, after around 200 flights were scrapped the previous day. Many flights from the airport were delayed Thursday morning, as airlines tried to get their schedules back on track. "Many passengers have to find new flights, which is kind of a puzzle," a Schiphol spokesman said. The problems at Schiphol were caused by a fault in the systems that supply fuel to aircraft, which meant planes could not be provided with the fuel they needed to depart. The airport said all problems with the fuel system were resolved Wednesday evening, and flights would resume gradually. <br/>