MAX 8 BACK IN THE SKIES
Westjet CEO on first flight
Calgary-based Westjet has successfully completed the first commercial Canadian flight of the Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft since its grounding 22 months ago.
Westjet Flight 155 took off from Calgary en route to Vancouver on Thursday morning.
On board the aircraft were 71 passengers, including Westjet president and chief executive officer Ed Sims and board chair Christopher Burley. The flight was piloted by Capt. David Colquhoun, Westjet master executive council chair with the Air Line Pilots Association, and Capt. Scott Wilson, Westjet's vice-president of operations. Chris Rauenbusch, president of CUPE Local 4070, was also on the plane.
Speaking from Vancouver following the flight, Sims called it an “auspicious day” for the airline.
“The return of Westjet's Max aircraft marks an operational milestone after 22 months of intense review and considerable learning,” Sims said. “Westjet's preparation, our processes, our due diligence and of course our philosophy of safety above all other considerations has brought us to this point today.”
The Boeing MAX was cleared for return to Canadian airspace earlier this week by Transport Canada, concluding nearly two years of government review after the aircraft was involved in two deadly crashes that saw the planes grounded worldwide.
The planes have been grounded since March 2019 following the crashes of a Lion Air flight near Jakarta on Oct. 29, 2018, and an Ethiopian Airlines flight on March 10, 2019, killing a total of 346 people.
Investigators determined that the cause of the crashes was a faulty computer system that pushed the plane's nose downward in flight and couldn't be overridden by pilots.
Since then, Boeing has made a number of design changes to the plane — changes that have been validated by Transport Canada as well as the U.S. Federal Aviation Authority.
Sims said Westjet is “100 per cent confident” in the safety of the plane, which now allows the pilot to be in absolute control of the aircraft at all times. All of the airline's MAX 8 pilots have gone through comprehensive and mandatory training on the redesigned aircraft.
Still, Westjet acknowledged Thursday that restoring passenger confidence in the plane will take time. Wilson said that is one of the reasons the airline's top executives as well as union representatives flew on the first flight.
“That's a strong, bold commitment from all of us at the leadership level to step forward on the first flight and show our confidence,” Wilson said. “We do know that some of the travelling public will have more concerns than others, but time will definitely show the safety of the MAX. We do believe that based on the additional scrutiny that's been put into it, this is the safest aircraft in the skies today.”
The airline plans to operate three round-trip 737 MAX flights per week between Calgary and Toronto. The schedule will remain in place for four weeks, while Westjet evaluates further routes and additional frequencies. Before the grounding, Westjet used its MAX aircraft across its network, including on its Hawaii routes as well as on its transatlantic flights from Halifax.
Westjet has pledged complete transparency with customers on where the MAX aircraft are flying, and has introduced a flexible change and cancel policy in case some guests are not yet comfortable travelling on the aircraft.
The grounding of the MAX caused headaches for airlines worldwide, but Westjet — for which the MAX made up a larger proportion of its fleet — was more affected than most. The airline was forced to shuffle flights and routes and postpone its own growth plans due to a lack of seat capacity. The grounding also meant Westjet no longer had the use of its most fuel-efficient aircraft.
According to research conducted by aviation consultancy firm INTERVISTAS and released by the Calgary Airport Authority last year, YYC was the fourth most affected airport in North America and the eighth most affected in the world when it comes to the number of flights disrupted by the grounding.
Air Canada, which also has a significant presence in Calgary, also has a sizable MAX 8 fleet. The Montreal-based airline owns 24 of the planes, accounting for six per cent of its overall fleet and about 20 per cent of its narrow-body fleet.
Air Canada has said it will resume Boeing 737 MAX commercial operations Feb. 1.