TUI and Norwegian among airlines hit by MAX 8 ban
The Civil Aviation Authority has followed other flight safety regulators around the world in grounding the Boeing 737 MAX 8 jet following the Ethiopian Airlines crash on Sunday.
It was the second fatal crash involving the Boeing jet in five months.
Britain follows Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, Indonesia, Ethiopia, South Africa and China in grounding the model following Sunday’s crash in Addis Ababa, in which all 157 people on board died.
A CAA spokesperson said: “As we do not currently have sufficient information from the flight data recorder we have, as a precautionary measure, issued instructions to stop any commercial passenger flights from any operator arriving, departing or overflying UK airspace.
“The UK Civil Aviation Authority’s safety directive will be in place until further notice.
“We remain in close contact with the European Aviation Safety Agency and industry regulators globally.”
During the ban, no Boeing 737 MAX 8 flights will be allowed to take off or land in the UK. Airlines operating the jet will also not be allowed to fly in UK airsape.
TUI has five of the aircraft, mainly based in Manchester for use on longer European and North Africa flights.
In a statement it said: “Any customers due to fly home today on a 737 MAX 8 from their holiday will be flown back on another aircraft.
“Customers due to travel in the coming days will also travel on holiday as planned on other aircraft.”
Norwegian, which flies to and from the UK, has 18 MAX 8s. Tomas Hesthammer, acting chief operating officer, said: “In response to the temporary suspension of Being 737 MAX operations by multiple aviation authorities we have taken the decision to not operate flights using this aircraft type, until advised otherwise by the relevant aviation authorities. We would like to apologize to customers for any inconvenienced caused, however, safety will always remain our top priority.”
The airline said it has more than 110 Boeing 737-800s that are not affected by the ban.
Other airlines which use the Boeing aircraft to fly to and from the UK include Turkish Airlines on flights between Istanbul and Birmingham.
Ryanair’s first MAX 8 aircraft are due to start flying from Stansted on May 14.
Which? is warning that even though the MAX 8 has been temporarily banned from flying in the UK, passengers could still end up on one of the aircraft if they’re booked on a connecting flight in another country.
"Given the level of publicity about this issue, UK airlines who have sold tickets with codeshare partners operating these planes should consider informing passengers who might be affected in advance and giving them the option to switch to another route with a different aircraft for free,” it said in a statement.
Linsey McNeill
Editor Linsey McNeill has been writing about travel for more than three decades. Bylines include The Times, Telegraph, Observer, Guardian and Which? plus the South China Morning Post. She also shares insider tips on thetraveljournalist.co.uk
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