Virgin Australia stated on Tuesday it had delayed supply of its order of 48 Boeing 737 MAX plane over security issues, following two lethal crashes.
The 737 MAX has been grounded worldwide since mid-March following the crash of an Ethiopian Airways flight and an earlier Lion Air crash in Indonesia, which killed a complete of 346 passengers and crew.
Virgin Australia stated in an announcement that it was deferring supply of its first batch of planes from November 2019 to July 2021.
“Security is at all times the primary precedence for Virgin Australia. As now we have beforehand said, we won’t introduce any new plane to the fleet until we’re utterly glad with its security,” Virgin Chief Government Paul Scurrah stated.
“We’re assured in Boeing’s dedication to returning the 737 MAX to service safely and as a long-term accomplice of Boeing, we can be working with them by way of this course of”, Scurrah stated.
Virgin additionally stated it was shifting a few of its orders of 737 MAX 8s to Max 10s whereas conserving the overall at 48 planes.
The Virgin announcement comes as Boeing executives confronted a number of shareholder challenges Monday at its annual normal assembly, with the disaster elevating questions on whether or not the aerospace big put earnings forward of security to market a brand new narrow-body airplane.
The US agency has stated each crashes concerned inaccurate data generated by the anti-stall system.
However it has defended the design of the MAX saying a number of elements can contribute to catastrophic accidents.
Boeing expects the Federal Aviation Administration to conduct a take a look at flight of a software program repair for the anti-stall system quickly.
