China Southern Airlines has scheduled two Boeing 737 MAX flights for Friday, its mobile app showed, which if completed would be the first commercial services for the model by a Chinese airline since a March 2019 grounding. The scheduled flights are domestic journeys from the southern city of Guangzhou to Zhengzhou and from Guangzhou to Wuhan, the app showed. China Southern had also initially scheduled a return to commercial service for the 737 MAX in October 2022 but did not use it on the planned flights. Boeing said it would defer to airlines to comment on flight operations, while China Southern did not respond immediately to a request for comment. The 737 MAX was grounded in March 2019 following fatal crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia but has returned to service around the world with the exception of China and Russia after modifications to the aircraft and pilot training. Foreign airlines began flying the 737 MAX to China in October 2022. Chinese airlines had 97 of the planes before the grounding, according to Cirium data in 2019. Boeing in October said it had another 138 planes manufactured for Chinese carriers that were in the United States waiting to be delivered, though it had begun remarketing the jets to other carriers given there were no concrete signs that Chinese airlines would accept the planes in the near term.<br/>
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As Covid pandemic restrictions are eased and airlines rebuild flight capacity, the performance of the world’s carriers is again falling under the scrutiny of analysts and passengers alike. So which airlines are whizzing people around the world on time? And which are the laggards of the skies? The most punctual global airline of 2022 was Garuda Indonesia, according to fresh analysis by travel data provider OAG, with 95.63% of the carrier’s flights coming in on time. However, overall operations were way down on 2019 levels, with just 25% of flights taking to the skies. South African low cost carrier Safair and Germany’s Eurowings took second and third spots in the Punctuality League, with on-time performances of 95.3% and 95.26% respectively. Eurowings, however, was the worst performer in the top 20 when it came to cancellations, with 3.49% of flights scrapped. Just one US carrier made the top 20 - Delta Airlines in 17th place with 81.79% of flights on time and a cancellation rate of 1.94%. No major European airlines made the grade after a summer of widespread disruption and delays. Japan dominated the list of the globe’s most punctual airports, taking 10 of the top 20 spots. Osaka International took the top position, with 91.45% of flights in 2022 arriving on time. No North American or European airports were on the list. "Global on-time performance is reaching levels last seen before the pandemic as carriers work to ease operational pressures and delays," said John Grant, chief analyst at OAG.<br/>