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Boeing Co. formally launched its 777X freighter as Qatar Airways committed to purchasing up to 50 of the wide-body cargo haulers, kicking off sales of the planemaker’s first new jet program in nearly five years.

The air cargo business, booming as never before during the global pandemic, is massively dominated by Boeing jets that make up most of the worldwide air freighter fleet. Yet there is a threat to that dominance.

Boeing Co. earned a profit for the first time in nearly two years, surprising Wall Street and hinting at a potential turnaround after one of the worst financial crises in the planemaker’s centurylong history. The shares jumped.

Boeing Co. grounded dozens of 737 Max jets to repair an electrical flaw that emerged just months after the planes were cleared to return to the skies, forcing airlines to cancel flights and line up replacement aircraft.

Authorities said they determined the location of the crash site and black boxes of a Boeing 737-500 on Jan. 10, a day after the aircraft crashed into the Java Sea with 62 people on board shortly after taking off from Indonesia’s capital.

Boeing Co.’s 737 Max is poised to return to commercial service in the U.S. with the first flight since two deadly crashes prompted the longest aircraft grounding in the nation’s history.

After nearly two years and a pair of deadly crashes, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration has cleared Boeing’s 737 Max for flight.

U.S. regulators plan on Nov. 18 to unveil the long-awaited final requirements for allowing Boeing Co.’s grounded 737 Max to return to service after 20 months, according to a person briefed on the plans.

Boeing Co.’s 737 Max could be approved to resume commercial service as soon as the week of Nov. 16, with U.S. aviation regulators finalizing their review of fixes to the grounded jetliner.

American Airlines Group Inc. plans to make Boeing Co. 737 Max passenger flights at the end of this year for the first time since the aircraft’s grounding in March 2019.