China Eastern puts Boeing 747-800s back in the air for the first time since deadly plane crash

According to flight-tracking data, China Eastern, the airline involved in that plane crash last month that killed 132 people in Guangzhou, has restarted flights of the same plane model that was involved in the crash. That flight happened about a month ago, but there hasn’t been an official report on its cause yet.

This is a pretty different path from the Boeing 747 MAX, which was grounded for more than a year and a half in the US after being in multiple crashes.

Key comments:

“My guess is that in the short term, this is going to cause some issues for China Eastern as their maintenance records are reviewed, and there will likely be a short-term pullback from Chinese consumers,” said Ben Cavender, managing director at China Market Research Group in Shanghai, after the initial crash.

“We think most of the impact will be in the near term,” said Cheng Wang, associate equity analyst at Morningstar. “The indemnity alone will not have a material impact on our fair value estimates. The potential regulatory actions including fines, additional security requirements, or even grounding of aircraft could make a bigger difference.”