Boeing is turning PR handstands to avoid admitting fault for legal / liability reasons, while at the same time heavily revising the Max's software and training regime, so they're really on a tightrope here. Offering to reimburse stricken airlines for Max-related costs might be read as acceptance of blame. Boeing will put on a concerned and mournful face in the public square but play hardball in private. In the Lion Air case, because the Max in question exhibited control trouble the day before the accident, Boeing will argue fiercely that Lion Air was negligent in dispatching the plane on the fatal flight. With customers stuck with grounded Max fleets, Boeing is apt to argue: go take it up with your national aviation regulators. We didn't issue your ground order.

Anyway the Max is likely to be sidelined for only a couple of months -- not as long as it would take to de-pickle desert airplanes and get them online. How long it will take to coax the flying public back aboard the "now even safer" Max is anyone's guess.