PLANE-MAKING giant Boeing is planning to restart production of the grounded 737 Max in May, sources told Reuters yesterday, despite disruption caused by the ongoing coronavirus outbreak.

The US manufacturer, which is currently in negotiations with the federal government about state aid to help it through the current crisis, suspended production of the model in January due to a lack of regulatory approvals and a 400 plane order backlog.

On Tuesday, US President Donald Trump said that he would not let Boeing go out of business in an interview with Fox News.

"We're not letting Boeing go out of business. You have to help them temporarily. It's not going to be a long time, temporarily," he said.

He added: "And they're going to pay interest and they're probably going to give stock in their company to the people of our country, to the taxpayers of our country, to the citizens of our country".

Despite the coronavirus slump, the aerospace giant is now scaling up preparations to restart production amid hopes the plane will be approved to fly again by mid-2020. The 737 Max has been grounded for over a year after the model suffered two fatal crashes, which killed 346 people in total.

Sources told Reuters that Boeing had asked some suppliers to ship parts for the plane in April, although the extent of the coronavirus disruption would impact the restart. Finance chief Greg Smith said that any restart in production would be combined with clearing Boeing's order backlog. This might prove challenging, as several airlines have been in negotiations to delay new plane orders after having to ground vast swathes of their fleets.

(c) 2020 City A.M., source Newspaper