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Avolon CEO sees new Boeing MAX timeline as 'worst case scenario'

Domhnal Slattery, CEO of Avolon, delivers a speech during the delivery of the first A330neo commercial passenger aircraft for TAP Air Portugal airline at the Airbus delivery center in Colomiers

DUBLIN (Reuters) - The head of aircraft lessor Avolon, which has committed to a fleet of 148 Boeing <BA.N> 737 MAX jets, said he believed the planemaker's new June to July horizon for getting the grounded aircraft back in the air was a "worst case scenario."

Boeing said on Tuesday it does not expect to win approval for the return of the 737 MAX to service until mid-year due to further potential developments in the certification process and regulatory scrutiny on its flight control system.

"The best news I've heard on the MAX grounding was yesterday, when Boeing said June-July," Avolon chief executive Domhnal Slattery told a conference in Dublin, adding he hoped it marked the beginning of the end of the MAX crisis.

(Reporting by Laurence Frost, writing by Padraic Halpin, editing by Chris Reese)