China Southern Boeing 737 MAX makes test flights as domestic demand picks up

China Southern Airlines this week conducted test flights with a Boeing 737 MAX plane for the first time since March, flight tracking websites showed, in a sign the jet's return in China could be nearing as demand rebounds. A MAX jet registered as B-1127 took off from the airline's headquarters city of Guangzhou on Tuesday morning and touched down about two hours later in the city of Nanyang in central China, according to aviation data provider Variflight. It returned to Guangzhou in the evening. The aircraft conducted similar flights on Saturday. China Southern, which has a pilot training base in Nanyang, did not respond to a request for comment. The airline, the largest Chinese operator of MAX aircraft, last flew the plane on March 14, showed data from Variflight, a week before the deadly crash of an earlier-generation 737 of China Eastern Airlines. That crash was viewed by analysts as a setback in Boeing's efforts to regain confidence in China after the MAX was grounded following crashes in Indonesia in 2018 and Ethiopia in 2019.<br/>