China Eastern petitions Boeing for 737 MAX losses: report

Shanghai-based China Eastern Airlines says it intends to press Boeing to compensate it for losses caused by the grounding of its 737 Max aircraft, as well as for delays in delivering other pre-ordered 737 MAX models, reports thepaper.cn.

A plane of China Eastern Airlines arrives at the Changzhou Benniu Airport in Changzhou City, Jiangsu Province, April 14, 2018. [File photo: IC]

This would make China Eastern the first Chinese airline to lodge claims against Boeing for the 737 MAX grounding.

China Eastern's 737 MAX aircraft are among the entire global fleet of 371 MAX aircraft which have been grounded following two fatal crashes in Ethiopia on March 10th of this year and in Indonesia on October 20th, 2018.

The report has not clarified how much compensation China Eastern will be requesting from Boeing. The Shanghai-based carrier's 14 MAX aircraft make up only a small percentage of the roughly 700 aircraft China Eastern currently operates, which is the world's second-largest fleet, and the largest in Asia.

Chinese airlines currently possess 96 of the 371 Boeing MAX jets which have been in service, the most of any nation.