SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australia’s aviation regulator said on Friday it would lift a near two-year ban on flights to and from the country that use the Boeing Co 737 MAX aircraft, making it the first nation in the Asia-Pacific region to do so.
“We…are confident that the aircraft are safe,” Graeme Crawford, the acting chief of the Civil Aviation Safety Authority, said in a statement.
The regulator had accepted the comprehensive return-to-service requirements set by the U.S. FAA as state of design for the 737 MAX, he added.
No Australian airlines operate the 737 MAX, but Fiji Airways and Singapore Airlines Ltd operated them on flights with Australia before the craft were grounded in March 2019 after two deadly crashes.
(Reporting by Jamie Freed; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)
