Washington (dpa) - US carrier American Airlines announced on Thursday that it will be extending the cancellation of its Boeing 737 MAX flights until at least April 7, 2020.
The troubled aircraft was grounded in mid-March as the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) investigated two crashes involving the 737 MAX jets in Indonesia and Ethiopia that killed 346 people.
"Based on the latest guidance, American anticipates that the resumption of scheduled commercial service on American's fleet of Boeing 737 MAX aircraft will occur April 7, 2020," the airline said in a statement.
The statement came just hours after the FAA confirmed that the jets would not be cleared to fly before 2020, as it had previously suggested.
"We have a number of milestones yet to complete," Steve Dickson, administrator of the FAA, told the House transportation committee on Wednesday.
Dickson said while the recertification process had advanced, it is only at the stage of looking at revised flight control software that is believed to have contributed to the two accidents that preceded the grounding.
American Airlines is the first airline to cancel flights into April. By then its flight schedules will have be affected for more than a year.
The FAA's comments on the recertification process contradict Boeing's own guidance on when regulators would lift the grounding order. The company said last month deliveries could resume this month.
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