Ran into a Fed today who’s working directly on getting the MAX back into the air. Straight from his mouth:

- AA, SWA, & UAL have had a chance to fly the MAX sim in MIA with the new software installed. All three airlines are content with it.

- The FAA anticipated giving the MAX the green light sometime in April, but other countries are holding things up and slow-rolling. Ethiopian is claiming that their crew was not able to disconnect MCAS through the stab trim cutout switches.

- The FAA doesn’t want to release the aircraft back into operation until others countries do the same due to public perception concerns.

So all this straight from a Fed who’s working on the MAX issue right now.