JAKARTA, Indonesia — Indonesia’s national airline has told Boeing that it wants to cancel an order of 737 Max 8 jets, the airline’s spokesman said on Friday, adding that its passengers had lost confidence in the model after two deadly crashes in five months.
The carrier, Garuda Indonesia, said it sent a letter to Boeing on March 14 seeking to cancel its order of 49 planes, of which just one had been delivered so far. The deal is estimated to be worth $4.9 billion.
But Garuda’s spokesman acknowledged that it is difficult to cancel such agreements once they have been signed, and that talks with Boeing would continue.
“Continuing the Max order does not benefit Garuda,” said the spokesman, Ikhsan Rosan. “Our passengers, psychologically, they don’t trust flying with Max anymore. They often asked during booking what type of aircraft they would be flying on.”
He said Garuda officials would meet with Boeing executives in Jakarta, the Indonesian capital, on Thursday to talk about alternatives.
“It still all has to be discussed,” Mr. Ikhsan said. He said it was possible “that we change to another model, not Max, but still from Boeing.”
A Boeing spokesman declined to comment.
Garuda’s move is the first publicly confirmed attempt to cancel a Max 8 deal since the planes were grounded around the world after the crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 on March 10, in which all 157 people aboard were killed.
That crash, in which the plane’s course became erratic almost immediately after takeoff, followed an eerily similar plunge by Lion Air Flight 610, also a Max 8. That plane crashed into the sea off the Indonesia coast on Oct. 29, killing all 189 people aboard.
Investigators examining both crashes are looking into, among other things, what role unannounced changes that Boeing made to the Max 8’s flight control system might have played.
Garuda could find it difficult to get out of its Max 8 order. Airlines typically put down a deposit of as much as one-fifth of the price of the plane, which costs $120 million before discounts, modifications and other adjustments. To get out of such a commitment, an airline has to show that the plane suffers from a structural problem or some other debilitating flaw, industry experts say.
It could also be hard to find replacements. Boeing’s rival, Airbus, has a yearslong backlog of orders to fill for its rival to the Max 8, the A320neo. China’s rival plane, the C919 — built by the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China, or Comac — has not yet flown commercially and must prove that it is both fuel-efficient and economical to operate.
