Editor's note: The attached video is from Nov. 18, 2020.
European budget airline Ryanair on Thursday announced it has agreed to buy an additional 75 MAX jets from Boeing. News of the deal comes just weeks after regulators lifted a 20-month safety ban on MAX jets following two deadly crashes.
The order is the largest for the jet since 2018, according to Reuters.
Ryanair, which described the MAX aircraft as a "Gamechanger," said the deal announced Thursday will expand its current order with Boeing from 135 to 210 MAX jets aircraft.
The airline said it has also come to an agreement with Boeing over compensation for the costs Ryanair incurred "over the past 18 months" due to delivery delays while the MAX jet was grounded. The low cost carrier noted some of that compensation came in a "modest reduction" in the pricing of the new aircraft order.
Ryanair's CEO said the company hopes to receive at least 50 of the aircraft by the end of 2021.
All MAX jets worldwide were grounded in March 2019 after the second of two crashes that together killed 346 people. Last month, the Federal Aviation Administration approved changes — mainly in flight-control software — that will allow airlines to resume flying the plane.
In a statement, Boeing President and CEO Dave Calhoun said the company is "gratified that Ryanair is once again placing its confidence in the Boeing 737 family and building their future fleet with this enlarged firm order."
"Boeing remains focused on safely returning the full 737 fleet to service and on delivering the backlog of airplanes to Ryanair and our other customers in the new year," Calhoun said. "We firmly believe in this airplane and we will continue the work to re-earn the trust of all of our customers."
American Airlines will likely be the first carrier to resume 737 MAX flights with paying passengers later this month. On Wednesday, the airline invited press reporters and photographers on board one of the planes to demonstrate its confidence in the plane's safety.
American flew journalists from Dallas to the airline's maintenance center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where crews explained how they are bringing the planes out of storage and making FAA-required changes.
Some relatives of people who died in the crashes — and who still believe the plane is unsafe — expressed outrage at both Boeing and American over what they termed a publicity stunt.
American is likely to be the only U.S. carrier using the MAX for several weeks. United Airlines expects to put the plane back in its schedule during the first quarter of next year, with Southwest following in the second quarter. Regulators in Europe and Brazil have cleared a path for their airlines to resume MAX flights in a few weeks.