Boeing and American Airlines have completed the first landing gear exchange for a 737 MAX, extending Boeing’s Landing Gear Exchange Program to the MAX platform. The work involved Boeing-certified overhauled main and nose landing gear assemblies supplied to American Airlines for installation in Plano, Texas, in a move aimed at reducing aircraft-on-ground time and easing spare-parts pressure for operators.
The exchange broadens a programme that already covers the 737, 747, 777 and 787 families. Boeing’s process provides ready-to-install landing gear and installation kits, while airlines carry out the swap and return the unserviced gear to the company’s overhaul network. Wheels, tyres and brakes are excluded from the supplied set.
Boeing also offers forward-exchange slots to help carriers plan maintenance more predictably and avoid tying up capital in spare landing gear inventory. The company framed the American Airlines swap as validation of the full overhaul, certification, delivery and installation flow for the 737 MAX fleet.