Originally Posted by
artee
An article on Bloomberg:
‘Not Suitable’ for Certain Airports
...‘Challenging Airports’
Boeing stated in a brief filed in the trade case that the “737 Max 7 has greater performance capabilities at challenging airports. In particular, the 737 Max 7 can serve certain ‘high/hot’ airports and has a greater range operating out of constrained airfields.” The brief then cites a number of such airports -- the names of which are redacted -- that the Max 7 can fly into that “the 8, 9 and 10 cannot."
“Larger 737 variants cannot be used at what are referred to has ‘high/hot’ airports,” the brief stated. Certain U.S. airports are unsuitable for the Max 8 “due to a combination of short runway lengths, elevation, temperature, humidity and other environmental conditions."...
Interesting story about the marketing of the MAX, but absolutely nothing to do with the crash, since Addis Ababa has a long enough runway. Edit: Once you are airborne, and have a positive rate of climb, it should not matter what airport you took off from. The only difference was that N1 may have been higher than at sea-level, but engine thrust certainly did not cause the crash. In any case Boeing sold the MAX 8 to Ethiopian, so that does not exactly absolve them of blame.