LONDON – Ethiopian Airlines has conducted its first set of tests with its Boeing 737 MAX aircraft after being grounded for nearly three years.

ET-AVI was the 737 MAX 8 aircraft to operate these two test flights that we have seen so far. The airframe was delivered to Ethiopian in September 2018, before being stored in Addis Ababa in 2019 following the crash of ET302.

ET-AVI, first of all, operated ET9201 yesterday from Addis Ababa International Airport to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Kenya.

ET9201 departed at 12:57 local time before arriving in Nairobi at 14:32 local time.

The aircraft then departed Nairobi today at 11:24 local time, before arriving back in Addis Ababa at 13:00 local time.

Such test flights will be the beginning of getting the aircraft properly back into service following the MAX crisis, which has caused a lot of technical and financial delays for carriers like Ethiopian.