A logistic puzzle for companies - Boeing 737 MAX flight suspension

The rare decision to nail down the brand new Boeing 737 MAX is a logistical challenge for the companies, but the abundance of the world fleet should allow, in the short term, to cushion the shock for air transport.

Even before the official announcement on Wednesday of the United States to banish these planes from the sky after two deadly accidents, the carriers began to work to reorganize their flight schedule and find replacement planes for the MAXs that were supposed to insure them. .

"No company has planes in stock, and every plane is planned in a flight program" organized well in advance with dedicated crews, says Addison Schonland, an expert on air transport. This makes complex any reorganization.

The 371 or so Boeing 737 MAXs, which flew until Wednesday, account for a small share of the world's 27,000 planes, says Richard Aboulafia, an aerospace expert at Teal Group, saying "replacing them is a problem. provisional".

Airbus had estimated in recent data that there were 19,000 aircraft with more than 100 passengers operating internationally, all models combined.

An Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX 8 crashed on Sunday killing 157 people. At the end of October, it was a plane of the same model from the Indonesian company Lion Air, which crashed in the Java Sea, killing 189 people. In both cases, the accident occurred a few minutes after take-off, a similarity that led authorities around the world to suspend its operation.

The SouthWest company, which has the largest fleet of MAX in the world with 34 aircraft, is relativized because these aircraft are part of a medium-haul fleet of more than 750 Boeing 737s.

"They represent only 4% of our flight program which includes about 4,100 flights per day," a spokesman told AFP.

"More than 95% of our total fleet is unaffected," he added, adding that the MAXs will be replaced by other company aircraft.

• Grunts passengers? -

However, "this poses a real operating problem" that could affect passengers, especially since companies could be tempted to fill more their other aircraft, said Didier Brechemier, expert in air transport at Roland Berger.

It adds that this could result in some cases by the removal of one or more frequencies (the number of flights of the same company on a given route) to the detriment of users.

"Companies sell their flight programs 360 days in advance," says Addison Schonland. "Customers buy their tickets on the basis of this program.If the company can not insure it, the customer must be compensated."

Or the passengers could be all the more dissatisfied that once their original ticket refunded, they could be led to pay a new trip much more expensive, the supply of flights being reduced.

If the companies did not have spare aircraft, they could "resort to ACMI (air, crew, maintenance, insurance), ie the rental of aircraft and their crew," says Didier Bréchemier.

But, delays in the delivery of new aircraft make "aircraft rental difficult," says Addison Schonland.

In Europe, for Norwegian Air Shuttle, whose financial situation is tense, there is simply no question of renting other aircraft. The low-cost airline uses its other models, such as the long-haul Dreamliner and the short and medium-haul Boeing 737-800.

On Wednesday, Norwegian, forced to nail 18 Boeing 737 MAX 8, announced that it would require financial repairs from the American manufacturer for these additional operating costs.

If it is impossible at this stage to have an estimate of Norwegian on the costs of this asset of the MAX, an analyst of DNB Markets has evaluated them between 5 and 15 million kronor (between 0.5 and 1.5 million 'euros) per day.