Caribbean Air­lines re­ceived the first of sev­er­al Boe­ing 737 Max 8 last evening. The air­craft, bear­ing reg­is­tra­tion 9Y-CAL, touched down at Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port at 11:18pm af­ter an ap­prox­i­mate­ly 8-hour jour­ney from the Paine Field Air­port, Seat­tle.

9Y-CAL's flight path | Image courtesy FlightAware.com

Ac­cord­ing to Caribbean Air­lines, the air­craft will be pre­pared for in­duc­tion in the com­ing weeks and is ex­pect­ed to be­gin com­mer­cial flights in Jan­u­ary.  

Caribbean Air­lines is ex­pect­ed to re­ceive more Max 8 air­craft in the com­ing months on lease as it works to up­grade its fleet. At least two Boe­ing 737-800 air­craft have al­ready left the fleet due to con­trac­tu­al oblig­a­tions. All of the new Max 8 air­craft will come in paint­ed in the air­line’s new liv­ery.  

The Boe­ing 737 Max 8 has re­turned to skies across the globe, two years af­ter be­ing ground­ed af­ter two dead­ly crash­es. The air­plane has since been cleared to fly by avi­a­tion safe­ty agen­cies around the world.