American Airlines Restarts U.S. Commercial Boeing 737 MAX Flights

(RTTNews) - American Airlines (AAL) has restarted Boeing Co.'s (BA) 737 MAX passenger flights in the United States on Tuesday for the first time in nearly two years.

American Flight 718 was scheduled to depart from Miami International Airport at 10:32 a.m. and land at LaGuardia Airport at 1:30 p.m. Initially, American Airlines will operate round-trip flights between Miami and New York, then it will gradually add the 737 Max back into service.

An American spokeswoman said the airline will reveal to passengers that they will be flying on a MAX. The carrier will also alert passengers if they are suddenly scheduled to fly on a MAX due to a schedule change, she said.

American Airlines is the third carrier globally to resume flights following Brazil's Gol Linhas Aereas Inteligentes and Mexico's Grupo Aeromexico earlier this month. Between those two airlines, the 737 MAX has flown about 250 commercial flights, according to Cirium, the aviation data firm.

Last month, the FAA lifted its ban on the 737 Max, 20 months after the aircraft was grounded following two crashes that killed 364 people.

An Ethiopian Airlines aircraft crashed on the outskirts of Ethiopia's capital city Addis Ababa in March 2019, killing all 157 people on board. It was the 737 Max's second accident in five months after 189 people were killed on a Lion Air flight in Indonesia.

The FAA published an Airworthiness Directive specifying design changes that must be made before the aircraft returns to service, issued a Continued Airworthiness Notification to the International Community and published the MAX training requirements. Those actions do not allow the MAX to return immediately to the skies, the FAA said in a statement.