-It's time to fly for this American Airlines Boeing 737,
from the airline's hub at the Dallas-Fort
Worth Airport.
But, on this day, it's a demonstration flight
up to Tulsa, Oklahoma.
This is a 737 MAX,
a family of planes grounded by the FAA
since March of 2019, after two crashes.
American is flying this plane as a sort of test,
to show it's solid and ready to go.
Soon, the 737 MAX will be flying passengers,
from Miami to New York and across the airline's network.
Tulsa is where American does maintenance.
It's also where it's getting the MAX ready for service.
The software load is about four hours,
to load the software.
It changes the way the flight control
computers handle the airplane.
-One of the important things for us to get people
to feel it's safe is actually flying it.
-For the airlines, these planes have to come out of storage,
be prepared to fly, and pilots retrained.
American has about 2,600 that need time in a flight simulator.
-There's been 20 months of scrutiny and diligence
put on line pilots' input, both to Boeing and to the FAA,
to make sure that we're safe
and that we have the confidence in the aircraft.
-The journey of the MAX to this point,
to this flight, has not been so smooth.
-There you saw the 737 MAX 8 airplane
complete its first flight.
-Boeing first flew the plane in 2016,
promising an update of its popular 737 model.
-Ingenuity here, here, and here.
-New engine technology would make it quieter,
more fuel-efficient, 14%
to 20% more efficient than planes before it.
-It's a lot less fuel. A lot less.
-But those larger engines affected how the plane flew.
It needed software, called MCAS, to keep it level.
Boeing's order books swelled.
Airlines around the world wanted the MAX.
US airlines flew them for more than 100,000 hours
without incident.
Then, in late 2018 and again in early 2019,
two Boeing 737 MAXes crashed, in Indonesia, then Ethiopia.
Three hundred and forty-six people died.
Investigations would reveal malfunctioning instruments
and pilots unfamiliar with that software keeping the nose down,
causing both planes to fly into the ground.
The fleet stopped flying.
What soon emerged were even larger questions around the MAX,
about design flaws
and how the plane was given the okay to fly.
Anger grew, from families of those killed
in the crashes to lawmakers.
-Those pilots never had a chance.
These loved ones never had a chance.
They were in flying coffins.
-I would walk before I was to get on a 737 MAX.
I would walk. -But Boeing vowed change,
rewriting flight control software
and putting the plane through test after test
to win back government approval to fly.
Now, that's happened.
FAA administrator Steve Dickson, also a pilot, has flown one.
-I can tell you now that I am 100% comfortable
with my family flying on it.
-But it's not a comfortable sight for Michael Stumo.
He lost his 24-year-old daughter in the crash in Ethiopia.
-My family and the crash families are very upset
that this plane is going back in the air.
-Over some 20 months, as the plane stayed grounded,
everything changed.
A pandemic led to the worst crisis in aviation history,
air travel collapsed,
and so did demand by airlines wanting the MAX.
Some of these planes have now sat for so long,
they'll need new paint jobs
because the airlines no longer want them
or gave gone out of business.
-Once COVID hit, however,
it provided this screen over the 737 MAX.
It took the pressure off the airlines
needing to have these new airplanes ready to go.
-Passengers will soon be seeing more of the MAX.
Almost 650 are in the fleet plans for US airlines.
American, United, Southwest, and Alaska will fly them.
The airlines are promising transparency,
letting passengers know when they're flying on a MAX,
with schedule changes at no penalty,
if they don't want to fly.
-We can't deny that the 737 MAX has a tarnished reputation,
so, as it's brought back to service by airlines,
I don't expect cakes.
I don't expect champagne.
I don't expect paparazzi or celebrations,
or anything like that.
You can tell you're on a max by looking.
Not inside, because the interior is the same
as the previous model.
But look outside.
The tail cone is rounder.
The tips of the wing form an arrow shape.
And then, there are the engines that started it all.
The edges have a sawtooth shape to help reduce noise.
The quest for a bigger, quieter engine on a plane
whose design goes back decades.
The longest grounding in history for a plane,
that will soon be landing again, at airports worldwide.