Lion Air Group is planning to scrap the rest of its B737 MAX orders with Boeing after the crash of an Ethiopian Airlines B737-8 on Sunday, March 10, strained already tense ties between the two.

Sources familiar with developments told Bloomberg that the crash of ET-AVJ (msn 62450) and the loss of all 157 lives onboard had made the group's co-founder, Rusdi Kirana, all the more determined to cancel the contract.

In late 2018, Kirana said he had felt "betrayed" at the treatment his airline had suffered following the crash of a Lion Air (JT, Jakarta Soekarno-Hatta) B737 MAX 8, PK-LQP (msn 43000), in October of that year. At the time, Boeing had pointed to maintenance issues and pilot error as underlying causes. Kirana told Bloomberg at that time that documents were being prepared to terminate the remainder of Lion Group's MAX order backlog which currently stands at fifty B737-10s, 136 B737-8s, and one B737-9.

As it stands, the source said Lion Air Group was now evaluating Airbus’s A320 family with focus on its biggest A321neo variant. The group already has 113 A320-200neos and sixty-five A321neo on order from the Europeans.