Boeing is making progress toward getting its 737 MAX aircraft in the air again, but the FAA will need at least several more weeks for review, FAA administrator Steve Dickson said Tuesday. Boeing has said it hopes to resume 737 MAX flights later this year, although major US and Canadian airlines have canceled MAX flights into January or February. Dickson said that the agency had received the "final software load" and "complete system description" of revisions to the plane, which was grounded in March. The FAA is currently using "aircraft production software" in the engineering simulator. The next step is to complete pilot workload management testing and have US and international pilots conduct scenarios to determine training requirements before a key certification test flight. <br/>
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Four days after leaked internal pilot messages set off a media firestorm for Boeing, former colleagues have defended a former pilot who voiced concerns about unreported 737 MAX software problems 2 years before fatal crashes. Chief technical pilot Mark Forkner described in the leaked messages how MCAS cockpit software was "running rampant" during a flight simulator session. The messages fuelled speculation that either Boeing or Forkner or both knew about problems with the plane's flight control software well before the 2 crashes. But former Boeing employees who either worked with Forkner at the time he wrote the messages or had direct knowledge of the simulator he used argued the erratic behavior he described likely referred to the software on the flight simulator he was using. <br/>
Boeing has replaced the head of its commercial aeroplanes division, marking the most significant leadership change in the wake of 2 deadly 737 Max crashes. The jet maker said Tuesday that Stan Deal would succeed Kevin McAllister, president and CE of Boeing Commercial Airplanes since 2016, effective immediately. Deal was previously president and CE of Boeing’s global services unit. McAllister was poached by CE Dennis Muilenburg in 2016 from GE, where he was head of its aviation business. He was a rare outside hire for Boeing and was put in charge of its commercial aircraft business with a mission to shake up and modernise production, as well as generate greater revenue form after sales service. However, he was also the executive responsible for resolving the problems with the 737. <br/>
A coalition of consumer groups that has questioned the safety of the nation’s increasingly crowded airline cabins and shrinking seats is calling federal safety tests scheduled for next month outdated. With airlines squeezing smaller seats in each cabin, federal regulations adopted last year required the FAA to study whether the size of airlines seats should be regulated. Tests, scheduled over a 12-day period next month, are an effort to gauge the safety of today’s tighter seats and cramped cabins. But the consumer groups, including the National Consumers League and Consumer Federation of America, wrote to the heads of the FAA and the DoT Monday, saying that the upcoming tests are outdated and don’t reflect the reality of most commercial flights today. <br/>
UK authorities have lifted a flight ban pertaining to services to the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, 4 years after imposing the restriction. The ban followed security concerns after a Russian-operated Airbus A321 crashed in Sinai in Oct 2015 – a loss which Russian authorities believe was the result of sabotage. UK flights to the resort have since been prohibited. The route had been served by carriers including British Airways and EasyJet, as well as leisure operators Monarch Airlines and Thomas Cook Airlines – both of which have since ceased trading. Monarch, in particular, had highlighted the ban as being among the financial pressures on the carrier a few months before its failure. But the UK govt has worked with Egyptian authorities to address the situation, and it is lifting the restrictions from Oct 22. <br/>
Mitsubishi Aircraft Corp is seeking to postpone deliveries of its SpaceJet regional airplane as it battles delays in securing regulatory certification, with one option being a 6-month delay from a mid-2020 target date. Such a delay would be the sixth for the programme, which aims to revive Japan's dormant commercial aviation industry. A new first-delivery date could be set next month, Nikkei said Saturday, without citing a source. The plane, this year renamed the SpaceJet instead of the Mitsubishi regional jet, was originally due to enter service in 2013. Mitsubishi Heavy told the stock exchange Monday that the planemaker was putting its "utmost effort" into completing certification and was sharing information about the schedule with all relevant parties. It did not provide an update on the delivery schedule for the plane. <br/>