Indonesia Flag Carrier Seeks to Cancel Order for 49 Boeing 737 MAX Jets

By Ben Otto 

JAKARTA, Indonesia--Flag carrier Garuda Indonesia said it is seeking to cancel an order for 49 Boeing Co. 737 MAX jets, saying passengers have lost confidence in the aircraft following two deadly crashes in recent months.

The move makes Garuda the first airline to publicly confirm plans to cancel a 737 MAX order. The 737 MAX jets were grounded by regulators world-wide this month in the wake of an Ethiopian Airlines crash that killed all 157 passengers and crew on board.

Garuda CEO I Gusti Ngurah Askhara Danadiputra said told The Wall Street Journal that the airline sent a letter to Kevin McAllister, head of Boeing's commercial plane division, "to say that we want to cancel."

The letter was sent March 14, company spokesman Ikhsan Rosan said, adding that Boeing representatives were planning to meet with Garuda in Jakarta on March 28 "for further discussion."

Mr. Rosan said the decision to cancel "is in line with the desires of consumers who have lost confidence in the Boeing 737 MAX 8."

A new MAX jet flown by Lion Air, Indonesia's largest airline by fleet size, crashed shortly after takeoff from Jakarta in October when pilots struggled with the plane's automated anti-stall system. All 189 people aboard were killed. Investigators say the circumstances of the Ethiopian Airlines crash have similarities to those of the Lion Air crash. Investigations into both crashes are ongoing.

On Thursday, a senior Boeing executive defended the company's aircraft design and production processes and said fixes to software linked to at least one of the crashes should be ready within weeks.

Garuda placed an order for 50 MAX jets in 2014 and has taken delivery of one, the airline said. The remaining 49 were scheduled to be delivered through 2030, it said.

As of January, Boeing had delivered 350 of the 737 MAX planes and received orders for about 5,000 more, making the MAX its most popular plane.

I Made Sentana and Deden Sudrajat contributed to this article.

Write to Ben Otto at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 22, 2019 01:36 ET (05:36 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.