It's been less than six weeks since the Boeing 737 Max was ungrounded by the Federal Aviation Administration and the plane is already flying passengers around Brazil and Mexico, with plans to start in the US in just seven days.

American Airlines will fly the aircraft first, following by United Airlines in February and then Alaska Airlines and Southwest Airlines in March. Brazil's Gol Linhas Areas began flying passengers on the aircraft on December 9, just three weeks after the FAA's ungrounding, and Aeromexico soon followed suit on December 21.

Airlines, however, have been waiting for the moment for nearly two years and are eager to put the grounding behind them.

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A key selling point of the Max is its fuel-efficiency as a hedge against rising fuel costs, which can be a killer for airlines. The past few years have seen a reprieve from high jet fuel prices but countless factors such as geopolitical showdowns, as we saw between Russia and Saudi Arabia in the early days of the pandemic, can drive oil prices way down or way up, at a moment's notice.

It's good for the environment and for the bottom line.

Airlines are also showing that they can't pass up a good deal, even if for a troubled aircraft. Boeing still has a product to sell and every Max sold goes further to restore confidence in the jet so good prices can be had, Aboulafia said.

Boeing not only has to sell new builds but also aircraft that were built and never delivered to a customer, known as "white-tails," since the combination of the grounding and the pandemic led to increased cancellations. Alaska Airlines not only announced a 23-aircraft order on Tuesday, growing its firm order total to 68 jets to be delivered by 2024, but also opted for nine white-tails.

Southwest Airlines was also reportedly in talks to acquire white-tails and will take on 35 Max aircraft in 2021. Despite having the largest Max fleet in the US prior to the grounding, Southwest will be one of the last airlines in the US to fly the Max, waiting until at least March before putting passengers on the aircraft.

As Aboulafia noted, the Boeing 737 Max isn't the first aircraft to be grounded after high-profile incidents, not even the first in the 2010s as the Boeing 787 Dreamliner was briefly shortly after its debut.

And despite the following grounding by the FAA, the DC-10 was still flown by passenger airlines for decades and still flies packages today for FedEx Express. A military variant also still flies for the US Air Force as an aerial refueler known as the KC-10 Extender.

Read more: The 16 most outrageous things Boeing employees said about the company, 737 Max program, and each other in released internal emails

All US airlines flying the Max are touting the aircraft's safety while simultaneously vowing to give customers flexibility when booked on the Max to move to another flight free-of-charge if they so desire. But travelers will have to know they're flying on a Boeing 737 Max first.

A more recent example comes from the early days of the airline industry's pandemic recovery with the onboard social distancing debate.

American Airlines and United Airlines were criticized for filling their planes to capacity so early on but just a few months later, airlines that did block seats are now reverting back to full flights. Southwest Airlines and JetBlue Airways, for example, announced their new plane-filling policies before the first COVID-19 vaccine cleared emergency authorization.

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Why airlines are so eager to get the Boeing 737 Max back in the air despite customer concerns - Business Insider India