New York, Jan 22 (AFP/APP): Boeing on Tuesday officially pushed back the timeframe for the 737 MAX to return to the skies, sending shares plunging and overshadowing an earlier announcement of a first flight of the delayed 777X plane. Boeing said it is now targeting the return of the grounded MAX “during mid-2020,” the latest delay in the schedule for the troubled jet, which has been grounded since March following two deadly crashes. Boeing shares finished at $313.37, down 3.3 percent, after the New York Stock Exchange earlier halted trading for around 40 minutes. The company is in the process of raising at least $10 billion from Wall Street banks to cover costs connected to the MAX crisis, bank sources said Monday. Boeing has told customers and suppliers “that we are currently estimating that the ungrounding of the 737 MAX will begin during mid-2020,” the company said in a statement. That marked a shift from Boeing’s most recent stance on its top-selling aircraft when it eliminated a target date entirely after repeatedly failing to keep to timetables in 2019. But even the vague mid-2020 target is later than some analysts had expected and it probably represents a best-case scenario that … Continue reading Boeing says 737 MAX return delayed until mid-2020