Cayman Airways announced Thursday that they will be conducting a maintenance test flight with one of the two grounded 737 MAX 8 aircraft in their fleet. The flight will be carried out from Owen Roberts International Airport on Saturday or Sunday.
Today, Cayman Airways Limited (CAL) announced that they will conduct a flight test this weekend with one of their two grounded Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft. The flight test will take place from Owen Roberts International Airport (ORIA) on Grand Cayman either Saturday or Sunday on aircraft registration VP-CIW. The second aircraft (VP-CIX) will be flight-tested in early March. The flight will be operated by Captain Stephen Coe and Captain Perry Panton, along with observers from the Civil Aviation Authority of the Cayman Islands (CAACI) and Boeing. In Thursday’s announcement, Cayman Airways’ President and CEO, Fabian Whorms said,
“For almost a year, the grounded Max aircraft have been maintained under an active storage maintenance program as specified by the manufacturer. Routine maintenance flights become necessary over time as part of this maintenance program and are being conducted in coordination with the CICAA and Boeing. The exact day and time of the flight for VP-CIW will depend on clearance times provided by Air Traffic Control to avoid airport congestion at ORIA, but likely to be late Saturday afternoon or Sunday morning.
Speaking further on Cayman Airways’ 737 MAX return-to-service plan, Mr. Whorms added,
In addition to the upcoming maintenance flights, we are planning to shortly ferry VP-CIW to a US-based maintenance and storage facility to conduct some required maintenance work and to prepare the aircraft for return to service, which is generally expected to occur later this year. Our second Max, VP-CIX, which has not conducted any commercial flights since its March 2019 delivery, does not require the same level of maintenance at this time and will remain in the current active maintenance program on Grand Cayman.”
Source: Cayman Airways