Scandinavian Airlines doesn’t fly the Boeing 737 Max, nor does it plan to order it. But its CEO, Rickard Gustafson, said he still fears a scenario that could occur later this summer, because his carrier sends many of its passengers onto United Airlines connecting flights in Chicago, Newark, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.

“Let’s assume that the aircraft is approved in the U.S. and not approved in Europe,” he said in an interview at the IATA Annual General Meeting, an annual conference of airline executives. “Well, we codeshare with United. What do you tell your customers? Do you say, ‘you know, here in Europe you can’t fly it, but if you fly us to the U.S. and connect with United, it is perfectly all right?’”

It’s a unique situation. There have been multiple crashes of the same aircraft type before, and regulators have grounded planes they viewed as unsafe. But they usually have done so in lockstep, so flights would stop and start everywhere at roughly the same time. Often, regulators defer to safety agencies where the aircraft is built, such as the Federal Aviation Administration in the United States for Boeing-made planes.

That’s less likely to happen here. The two recent Max crashes have shown that there are major differences in how regulators view Max aircraft. While the FAA eventually the grounded the airplane after an Ethiopian Airlines crash in March, it was among the last regulatory agencies to do so. Officials in China and Europe moved faster.

Many airline executives in Seoul said the same may happen in reverse when the aircraft flies again. They said they expect U.S. regulators to lift restrictions first, with officials in other countries waiting longer. European regulators have said they intend to make their own determination about airworthiness.

No one knows exactly when the first Max again will fly paying passengers. U.S. airlines have suggested August as a possible time for their aircraft to resume flying, but Emirates President Tim Clark, whose airline does not fly the Max, told reporters in Seoul he wasn’t sure it would be back in the air this year.

In a panel discussion Sunday, Singapore Air CEO Goh Choon Phong said he expects Singapore will lag behind regulators in the United States. That means it could be awhile before Singapore Air’s regional arm, Silk Air, can return the jets to service.

Goh said he would prefer regulators work together to reach “the right solution that is safe for the industry and safe for everyone who is traveling.”

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