US and EU regulators said Tuesday they were still reviewing changes Boeing made to 737 MAX software after two fatal crashes, a development that raised questions about how quickly the grounded aircraft can return to service. The ongoing safety review means a key 737 MAX certification test flight is unlikely before November, two sources said. Boeing has repeatedly said it hopes to resume flights in Q4, which began on Oct. 1. Regulators sought to play down talk of transatlantic divisions over safety changes to the 737 MAX, which was grounded worldwide in March after two crashes killed 346 people within five months. The US FAA said it has a “transparent and collaborative relationship” with other civil aviation authorities as it continues its 737 MAX safety review. Its EU counterpart said it was in “continuous contact” with both the FAA and Boeing. “We do not at this stage have any specific concerns resulting from that assessment that would mean that we could not agree to a coordinated return to service. We are in continuous contact with both the FAA and Boeing,” an EASA spokeswoman said. FAA Administrator Steve Dickson told Reuters in September the agency would need about a month following the yet-to-be scheduled certification test flight before the planes could return to service. The FAA reiterated on Tuesday that it does not have a firm date for completing its review. <br/>
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Boeing secured the first converted order in months for one of its grounded 737 MAX planes, company data for September showed on Tuesday, as it reported that total deliveries for the first nine months of 2019 had almost halved from a year earlier. Regulators grounded the 737 MAX worldwide following a second fatal crash in March that killed all 157 people on board an Ethiopian Airlines plane, and is fighting to get the jet back in service later this year. It said Tuesday that an unidentified business jet customer had ordered one 737 MAX jet, with monthly data suggesting it was converted to the MAX from another variant. Boeing also reported four apparent order conversions in favor of the MAX in April but a major tentative deal for 200 of the jets from British Airways owner IAG, announced at the Paris Airshow in June, has yet to show up as a firm order. Boeing’s net order tally, including cancellations, was a negative 84 for the first nine months of 2019, also hit by the bankruptcy of India’s Jet Airways, which resulted in Boeing removing 210 aircraft from its order backlog. Airbus has 127 net orders this year and is within reach of its full-year goal of 880-890 deliveries despite factory snags. Boeing deliveries fell 47% to 302 aircraft in the first nine months of 2019. Deliveries totalled 26 aircraft in September, down from 87 a year earlier.<br/>
Boeing agreed to invest $20m for a minority stake in Virgin Galactic, a startup that is preparing to fly its customers into space next year. The relationship is designed as a collaboration aimed at shaping the future of human space travel, the companies said in a statement Tuesday. Virgin Galactic also is setting longer-term sights on shuttling airline travelers around the world at high speeds - a mode of transport that will take years to achieve. The deal positions the companies to explore the marketplace for airline travel at hypersonic speeds above the Earth's atmosphere, trimming trips across the globe to two hours or less. Elon Musk's Space Exploration Technologies Corp. also has announced plans for such flights in the future. Boeing's investment is "a catalyst for broader collaboration and deeper collaboration," said Virgin Galactic CEO George Whitesides. The future of high-speed airline travel is "a big chess board" with numerous engineering, technological and financial issues to resolve, he said in an interview. "We can really start to dig into some of these questions that need to be put in place." Boeing will make the investment through its HorizonX Ventures arm to join the space startup founded by UK billionaire Richard Branson. Boeing next year is set to fly its first commercial space customers - astronauts - to the International Space Station as part of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's commercial crew program.<br/>
Instead of scanning her boarding pass, the airport gate scanned her face.<br/>In April 2019, traveler MacKenzie Fegan was left surprised and confused when she boarded a JetBlue flight from the United States to Mexico, without handing over her passport, or travel documents. "There were plastic barricades across the front of each lane, I look to my right, and the gate opens," she said. "I was like, 'What, just happened?' There was no boarding pass scan, nothing like that." Before she'd even sat down on her airplane seat, Fegan, a New York-based journalist, fired off a Tweet to JetBlue, asking the airline to explain the process. "Did facial recognition replace boarding passes, unbeknownst to me? Did I consent to this?" She wrote, clicking send. About 10 minutes later, Fegan received a reply: "You're able to opt out of this procedure, MacKenzie. Sorry if this made you feel uncomfortable," read the response. Implicit in the Tweet was the answer that, yes, on some JetBlue flights, facial recognition and biometric technology is used -- seemingly to speed up boarding, and sift out security threats.<br/>Fegan's initial Tweet received over 8,500 likes, sparking a thread where passengers voiced privacy concerns and debated the pros and cons of a technology that's becoming omnipresent in airports across the world. "We are increasingly moving towards this type of automation -- personal data and biometric data being available to companies and to corporations," says Fegan. "I had a lot of questions, I think everybody should have a lot of questions."<br/>Story has more on biometric technology.<br/>