US court approves Aeroméxico’s reduced B737 MAX order

Judge Shelley C. Chapman, of the US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, has approved Aeroméxico’s plan to reduce its B737 order backlog by 34 aircraft. In a ruling issued on April 30 as part of the carrier’s ongoing Chapter 11 proceedings, Judge Chapman approved the cancellation of two outstanding B737-8 orders (with deliveries originally scheduled for August and September 2020) and thirty-two B737-9s (originally scheduled to deliver between August 2020 and April 2023). Consequently, the Mexican carrier’s Boeing narrowbody order book now stands at just twenty units, whose delivery dates were also revised. Previously, Aeroméxico said nine of the remaining B737 MAX would be delivered prior to the peak summer 2021 season with the remainder due in the latter part of 2021 and the first half of 2022. According to partially redacted information included in the court filing, the first nine are scheduled for delivery between April and June 2021, with the remainder due between September 2021 and March 2022. The exact variants were redacted from the document. Prior to the cancellation, Aeroméxico had unfilled orders for eleven B737-8s and forty-three -9s. Assuming no type conversions, the current order book would comprise nine B737-8s and eleven -11s. Aeroméxico already operates six B737-8s. The revised order also doubles the number of B787-9s due for delivery to Aeroméxico from two to four. The carrier has also amended the terms for existing leases for six B737-8s, as well as five B737-800s, two B787-8s, and three B787-9s.