DUBLIN/SEATTLE: Deliveries of Boeing’s best-selling 737 MAX jets were effectively frozen on Wednesday, though production continued, after the United States joined a global grounding of the narrowbody model over safety concerns, industry sources said.
The 737 MAX is banned from flying in most countries across the world following an Ethiopian Airlines crash on Sunday that killed all 157 people on board. It was the second deadly incident for the relatively new Boeing model in five months.
Airlines, aircraft industry experts and financiers said that although the ban would theoretically not prevent some domestic deliveries, most airlines would avoid taking a jet banned from entering service on the wake of two crashes in five months.
“Who is going to take delivery of a plane they can’t use,” said an aviation financier, asking not to be named.
