FILE PHOTO – Canada’s Transport Minister Marc Garneau speaks during Question Period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, May 16, 2017. REUTERS/Chris Wattie
MONTREAL (Reuters) – Canada has no plans to ground Boeing (BA.N) 737 MAX 8 aircraft, but is ready to “act immediately” to suspend flights if new information emerges indicating there is a problem, Transport Minister Marc Garneau said on Tuesday.
His comments come as growing number of nations suspend operations of the plane after a crash in Ethiopia that killed 157 people just five months after another disaster in Indonesia involving the same model.
Garneau said Canada had not received any new information concerning the Ethiopian crash that would prompt it to ground Boeing 737 MAX 8 planes, but said all options were on the table.
“If we received information or explanations that indicate that there’s a problem … certainly we’ll act immediately,” he told reporters in Montreal.
“I asked my team to evaluate all available options, which includes possibly temporarily grounding some planes – the MAX 8 planes – so we’re ready to do so, if we decide to do so.”
Garneau later said on Twitter that he had canceled all his meetings and public events for Tuesday so he could consult with a panel of civil aviation experts. Canada’s two main airlines – Air Canada (AC.TO) and WestJet Airlines Ltd (WJA.TO) – operate a total of 37 737 MAX 8 planes.
Reporting by Allison Lampert in Montreal; Writing by Julie Gordon and David Ljunggren in Ottawa; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Matthew Lewis