Boeing had no new commercial aircraft orders in April and slashed its 737 backlog by 171 aircraft amid the collapse of Indian carrier Jet Airways. Chicago-based Boeing’s April deliveries also came to a halt as the 737 Max remains grounded. Boeing took 207 737s off its books in the first four months of 2019, though 36 737 orders equate to a net reduction of 171 737s in the four-month period, according to Boeing's figures. Boeing also took 10 787s off its backlog in April. Including 737 and 787 reductions, Boeing's total backlog of all aircraft types declined by 119 between January and April. The reduction largely reflects Jet Airways' suspension of flights in April, which prompted Boeing to remove 210 aircraft from its books. Jet had orders for 737s and 787.

Thomas Cook has received "multiple bids" for its airlines since launching a strategic review of the business in February, it confirmed today in disclosing half-year results. The travel group says the offers variously span the whole of the airlines business or just parts of it. "As we assess these bids, we will consider all the options to enhance value to shareholders and intensify our strategic focus," it adds. The Group Airline unit's underlying operating profit worsened 20% in the six-month period ended 31 March, to £71 million, as revenue declined 8.1% to £1.02 billion.

Lawmakers grilled the head of the Federal Aviation Administration on the 15th of May, hammering acting administrator Dan Elwell with questions about the FAA’s certification and oversight of both Boeing and the troubled 737 Max. Elwell sat before a House Transportation Committee panel for hours, during which he expressed confidence in the FAA’s certification work. But he conceded pilots should have known more about the 737 Max’s manoeuvring characteristics augmentation system (MCAS), the flight control software implicated as a factor in two 737 Max crashes. “When I first heard of this, I thought that the MCAS should have been more adequately explained… in the manual,” Elwell tells lawmakers. “There should have been more text in the manual about MCAS.”
His comments hinged repeatedly on concepts like “safety-critical systems” and “single points” of failure.
Was the 737 Max’s MCAS safety critical, one lawmaker asked. “It seems to me that, yes, it is,” Elwell replied.
Why, then, did the FAA approve a system that can cause the aircraft to dive based on one faulty angle-of-attack (AOA) indicator? Elwell replied that pilots can counter MCAS by using a checklist they should have in memory.