Garuda Indonesia (GA, Jakarta Soekarno-Hatta) has become the first B737 MAX customer to publically confirm it will cancel its order for the type.

The Indonesian carrier has orders for fifty B737-8s of which only one - PK-GDA (msn 62093) - has thus far been delivered. The remainder were deferred given the airline's financial restructuring which sought, among other objectives, to reduce costs and expenditure. As such, in September last year, Garuda said it had deferred five B737 MAX 8s that were to have delivered in 2018 and five that were to have arrived in 2019, to 2023 and 2024 respectively.

However, following the crash of an Ethiopian Airlines B737 MAX 8, ET-AVJ (msn 62450), on Sunday, March 10, in which all 158 passengers and crew on board were killed, the airline has moved to terminate the MAX order as a whole and is even looking to return PK-GDA.

"We have sent a letter to [Kevin] McAllister [the President and CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes] declaring our intention to cancel the remaining 49 units," Chief executive Ari Ashkara told Liputan news.

According to him, following the crash of a Lion Air B737 MAX 8, PK-LQP (msn 43000), in October last year in which all 189 onboard were killed, passengers have refused to board MAX 8-operated flights with the recent Ethiopian Airlines tragedy serving only to deepen that distrust.

"So even though they may have fixed the MAX 8's systems, that passenger confidence is gone. So we asked for the order to be cancelled," he added.

Boeing officials will visit Indonesia this week to discuss Garuda's plans to terminate the order.

Lion Air Group has also signalled its intention to cancel its outstanding MAX order which currently numbers fifty B737-10s, 136 B737-8s, and one B737-9. The group's co-founder, Rusdi Kirana, said in November last year that his firm had felt betrayed at the way in which Boeing had treated it following October's crash. At the time, he said Boeing had attempted to exonerate itself by pointing out maintenance issues and pilot error as underlying causes in the crash.

Thus far, no other MAX customers have yet terminated their orders on the basis of the two crashes. However, many have conditioned their taking delivery of outstanding aircraft on the MAX passing more rigorous air safety checks.