According to Patrick Ky, the head of the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), Boeing 737 MAX will be approved for flights in Europe next week.

The renewal of the aircraft will be subject to compliance with mandatory requirements for changes to the aircraft’s flight control system and pilot’s training set out in the agency’s directive.

“It will be cleared to fly again from next week”, Patrick said at an online meeting hosted by Germany’s Aviation Press Club.

EASA requests changes, including re-certification of the aircraft’s flight control system, known as the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System.

Both crashes, which killed a total of 346 people and resulted in nearly two years of grounding the 737 Max, occurred when the software was activated at the wrong time, which pushed the plane down.

The first accident occurred in October 2018, when a Lion Air plane came down in the sea off the coast of Indonesia.

The second concerned the Ethiopian Airlines aircraft, that crashed shortly after taking off from Addis Ababa, just four months later.

Boing 737 MAX has already been given the green light for flights from the US, Brazil and Mexico. Transport Canada announced that it would be lifting the ban on January 20, 2021.

Pilots will have to undergo mandatory training and each aircraft will have to undergo a test flight to ensure that the changes have been carried out correctly.