An official with Chinese Eastern Airlines has denied the rumor that the carrier has been cutting maintenance costs and that this might have been a factor in the recent plane crash.
In October 2019, Boeing carried out an emergency inspection for a joint component in the fuselage and wing of its 737 NG aircraft, according to a press conference held on Thursday in Wuzhou, South China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, which is close to the crash site.
The inspection involved thousands of registered passenger aircraft around the world, including one belonging to China Eastern Airlines’ Yunnan branch.
The branch carried out professional maintenance under the cooperation and authorization of Boeing, and the plane fully met the airworthiness requirements. The aircraft left the fleet on September 8, 2020 and was not the plane involved in the crash, Liu Xiaodong, a spokesperson for China Eastern Airlines, said at the press conference.
The aircraft in the accident was only 6.8 years old and had been used on 8,986 flights, which was well within the maintenance requirements, Liu said.
Liu also denied that the carrier had been cutting maintenance costs. Liu said the company’s maintenance fees increased by 12 percent in 2021 from 2019, even though the number of flights had decreased due to the epidemic.
A plane of China Eastern Airlines Photo: IC
