#Brazilian airline GOL restarts flights with Boeing 737 MAX

A Brazilian airline has become the first in the world to resume commercial flights with Boeing’s troubled 737 MAX jet.

GOL, Brazil’s biggest domestic carrier, started using the plane on domestic routes to and from its São Paulo hub on Wednesday — nearly two years after it was grounded in the wake of two crashes that killed 346 people.

Celso Ferrer, GOL’s vice president of operations, said the company is “fully confident in the MAX’s return to service” now that regulators in Brazil and the US have cleared it to start flying again after a lengthy review of Boeing’s safety fixes for the jet.

“Over the past 20 months, we have watched the most comprehensive safety review in the history of commercial aviation unfold, bringing together regulatory agencies and airlines from around the world to monitor and contribute to the upgrades in aircraft systems and pilot training,” Ferrer, who is also a commercial pilot trained to fly the MAX, said in a statement.

More airlines are expected to join GOL in flying the MAX again this month following the crash scandal that rattled Boeing. American Airlines, for instance, is slated to offer its first commercial trip with the plane with a Dec. 29 flight from Miami to New York.

GOL says it will gradually incorporate the seven MAX jets in its fleet into its flight schedules once they’re all cleared for a full return to service, which should happen by the end of December.

The company completed a “rigorous series of technical flights” and worked with Boeing to train 140 of its pilots on a MAX simulator before working the jet back into its fleet, it said in a news release.

GOL said it has ordered 95 MAX jets to replace some of its existing Boeing planes in the coming years, making it one of the Chicago-based planemaker’s biggest customers. The airline says it operates 127 Boeing aircraft in all.

“Boeing and GOL have been working side by side for almost twenty years, and it was no different during the period when the MAX went through the certification process that made its safe return possible,” Landon Loomis, Boeing’s managing director in Brazil, said in a statement.

Boeing shares were up about 0.3 percent at $237.34 as of 10:05 a.m. Wednesday, while GOL’s New York-listed shares were recently down about 0.3 percent at $10.82.