Further reputational damage to the 737 MAX family will concern many Asia-Pacific airlines

The latest Boeing 737 MAX headlines are once again shining a spotlight on an aircraft type that has become increasingly important to several Asia-Pacific airlines - and also plays a key role in their long term fleet strategies.

The loss of a door plug section on an Alaska Airlines 737-9 flight on 5-Jan-2024, and subsequent discoveries of potential manufacturing slips, have put the 737 MAX back in the public eye for the wrong reasons.

This was just what the MAX programme did not need, after making great strides in rehabilitating public perception following the fatal crashes in 2018 and 2019 that caused a long term grounding of the type.

It must be noted that the current issues have only been linked to the 737-9 variant, on certain configurations. But the travelling public may well not distinguish between MAX or 737 variants.

There is also still much more information to come as investigations continue, so it is unclear what further regulatory action might arise.

Another caveat is that there are very few MAX-9s operated by Asia-Pacific airlines. However, this is still a timely point to take a snapshot look at the growth of the overall MAX fleet in the region.