Singapore Airlines Ltd’s SilkAir has relocated the first of its six Boeing Co 737 MAX aircraft to central Australia for storage, as the global grounding of the jet continues following two deadly crashes in the past 12 months.
Boeing pilots flew the aircraft to Alice Springs yesterday, Singapore Airlines said in an e-mailed statement.
The Australian Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) on Friday said that SilkAir would begin transferring its planes today.
The relocation “has been facilitated with permission from civil aviation authorities in Australia, Indonesia and Singapore,” the airline said.
“The remaining five aircraft will be progressively relocated,” it said, without providing details on timing.
CASA spokesman Peter Gibson said on Friday that the aircraft would be flown by experienced Boeing pilots using a “flight profile which ensures there can be no activation of MCAS,” referring to the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System feature linked to the crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia that killed 346 people between them.
The pilots received training in case an MCAS-related event occurs, he said.
It is still unclear when the 737 MAX will resume scheduled flights, because investigations by authorities around the world are ongoing.
CASA said it is following flight profiles for ferrying the aircraft in the US, Canada and Europe.
In one California facility, the cost of storage runs to about US$2,000 per month for a plane, according to an industry veteran.
The Wall Street Journal on Sunday reported that Boeing left off “key safeguards” from the 737 MAX’s anti-stall system that were included on an earlier version of the system used on a military tanker aircraft.
The earlier version of the system relied on multiple sensors and had “limited ability to move the tanker’s nose,” while the MAX’s version received input from just one sensor and was “tougher for pilots to override,” the newspaper said.
The Wall Street Journal cited a person familiar with the system as saying that the earlier version was designed to guard against problems.
“You don’t want the solution to be worse than the initial problem,” the person said.
A Boeing spokesman told the newspaper that the systems were “not directly comparable.”
Additional reporting by AFP
TECH PARTNERSHIP: The deal with Arizona-based Amkor would provide TSMC with advanced packing and test capacities, a requirement to serve US customers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is collaborating with Amkor Technology Inc to provide local advanced packaging and test capacities in Arizona to address customer requirements for geographical flexibility in chip manufacturing. As part of the agreement, TSMC, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, would contract turnkey advanced packaging and test services from Amkor at their planned facility in Peoria, Arizona, a joint statement released yesterday said. TSMC would leverage these services to support its customers, particularly those using TSMC’s advanced wafer fabrication facilities in Phoenix, Arizona, it said. The companies would jointly define the specific packaging technologies, such as TSMC’s Integrated
China’s economic planning agency yesterday outlined details of measures aimed at boosting the economy, but refrained from major spending initiatives. The piecemeal nature of the plans announced yesterday appeared to disappoint investors who were hoping for bolder moves, and the Shanghai Composite Index gave up a 10 percent initial gain as markets reopened after a weeklong holiday to end 4.59 percent higher, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index dived 9.41 percent. Chinese National Development and Reform Commission Chairman Zheng Shanjie (鄭珊潔) said the government would frontload 100 billion yuan (US$14.2 billion) in spending from the government’s budget for next year in addition
Sales RecORD: Hon Hai’s consolidated sales rose by about 20 percent last quarter, while Largan, another Apple supplier, saw quarterly sales increase by 17 percent IPhone assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) on Saturday reported its highest-ever quarterly sales for the third quarter on the back of solid global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團) globally, said it posted NT$1.85 trillion (US$57.93 billion) in consolidated sales in the July-to-September quarter, up 19.46 percent from the previous quarter and up 20.15 percent from a year earlier. The figure beat the previous third-quarter high of NT$1.74 trillion recorded in 2022, company data showed. Due to rising demand for AI, Hon Hai said its cloud and networking division enjoyed strong sales
Protectionism: US trade chief Katherine Tai said the hikes would help to counter unfair trade practices from China, while boosting domestic clean energy investments US Trade Representative Katherine Tai (戴琪) defended stiff tariff hikes against countries such as China, saying that paired with investment, they were a “legitimate and constructive” tool for reinvigorating domestic industries. Tai’s comments come a week after sharp tariff increases on Chinese electric vehicles (EVs), EV batteries and solar cells took effect — with levies down the line on other products also recently finalized. The latest moves targeting US$18 billion in Chinese goods come weeks before next month’s US presidential election, with Democrats and Republicans pushing a hard line on China as competition between Washington and Beijing intensifies. In an interview on Thursday