The MAX flies again for flyDubai

flyDubai has announced, finally, that its Boeing 737 MAX is back to the skies!

The first revenue flight after the types comeback has been to Sialkot, in Pakistan, with routes to Karachi, Multan and Tehran following suit.

Now, why highlighting this here is this not the first airline to unground the MAX?

There have already been quite a few MAXes in the sky the last few weeks (to be the best of my knowledge, China is the only last major country that still keeps the MAX grounded)

flyDubai Boeing 737 MAX flight reports

But the flyDubai Boeing 737 MAX is an aircraft that I had the chance to experience early on and write a couple fo flight reviews about it, which proved quite popular at the time. So I thought it was as good an excuse as any other to recover them from the archives.

So, here they are:

The flight review of flyDubai economy class on the Boeing 737 MAX 8

The flight report of flyDubai business class on the Boeing 737 MAX 8

To support this much awaited comeback and respond any questions potential travellers may have, flyDubai has also created a dedicated micro-site.

A MAXed growth strategy

At the time of writing these lines its a first batch of 5 Boeing 737 MAX aircraft (out of 14 that had already been delivered when the type was grounded, 11 MAX-8s and 3 MAX-9s) that has been cleared to fly by General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) of the UAE after having completed operational readiness flights.

The Boeing 737 MAX is essential for flyDubai future plans: back in the day the carrier placed a gigantic 251-strong order for the type, divided between the three versions of the Boeing 737 MAX, -8s, -9s- and -10s).

If you wish to learn more about the reasons that, back in the day, flyDubai decided to make of the MAX the cornerstone of its strategy, read this report I wrote for AirInsight after visiting flyDubai’s offices and meeting its senior management back in 2018. I wonder if and how the pandemic has changed all of this.