Lion Air 'urgently requires' more 737 MAX jets to support growth: co-founder

Indonesia’s Lion Air “urgently requires” more Boeing 737 MAX jets to support its growth strategy once regulators approve the grounded model’s return to service, the airline’s co-founder, Rusdi Kirana, said Wednesday. He said the low-cost airline, which had previously threatened to cancel its order for 187 jets worth $21b at list prices, would need to be satisfied with the outcome of negotiations with Boeing before taking the planes. “If they don’t satisfy us, we will cancel the contract,” Kirana said. In April, Kirana lashed out over Boeing’s handling of the accidents and accused the US manufacturer of looking down on the airline as one from the “third world”, even though it is one of the plane maker’s largest customers globally. A final report on the Lion Air crash is expected to be released at the end of September, Indonesia’s civil aviation authority said last week. Boeing is working to finalise a software fix of issues with an anti-stall system called MCAS that activated on the two crashed jets. Regulators will then need to approve the model’s return to service before airlines take more of the planes. Garuda Indonesia is also in talks with Boeing about changes to its order for 49 737 MAX jets, said its CE, Ari Askhara.<br/>