FAA certifies Boeing's 737 Max 10 six years behind plan
The FAA certified the Boeing 737 Max 10 on October 20, six years after Boeing planned to start deliveries. Boeing has 1,555 orders for its largest single-aisle jet, which must now compete with an Airbus A321neo that has had the market to itself.
The US Federal Aviation Administration certified the Boeing 737 Max 10 on October 20, about six years after Boeing had planned to begin deliveries in 2020. Boeing said it would start handing over the aircraft "in the coming months".
The Max 10 is the largest member of the 737 Max family, seating 185 to 210 passengers in a typical two-class layout and up to 230 in a maximum configuration, with a range of up to 3,100 nautical miles. Boeing has 1,555 orders for it from more than 30 customers, which it says is more than 30 per cent of the 737 Max order book.
The delays had several causes. The grounding of the Max family after two fatal crashes in 2018 and 2019 rewrote the certification rules, and the Max 10 is the first commercial aircraft certified to the full extent of the 2020 Aircraft Certification, Safety and Accountability Act.
Boeing also had to redesign the engine anti-ice system after finding that prolonged use in dry air could overheat the engine inlet, and to add an enhanced angle of attack system, which measures the aircraft's angle to the oncoming air and is required by US legislation. That system will become standard across the 737 Max family, with retrofits to aircraft already in service.
A late fault in the flight management software, under which the vertical navigation function could disengage during a go-around in certain conditions, briefly threatened another delay. The FAA judged that it did not need to be corrected before certification.
The approval completes the family, after the smaller Max 7 was certified earlier this year. Boeing held about 40 Max 7 and Max 10 aircraft in inventory as of June, none of them delivered.
The commercial case rests on competing with the Airbus A321neo, the aircraft that has dominated the large single-aisle market while the Max 10 waited. The A321neo accounted for 267 of the 547 aircraft Airbus delivered in the first nine months of this year.
Ryanair, which ordered 150 Max 10s in 2023 with options on 150 more, is among the first in line. Michael O'Leary, its chief executive, said on October 20 that he expects the first aircraft in January and about 16 more by April.
Boeing says the aircraft's longer range and lower seat costs will win it ground, and its order book suggests airlines agreed even through the delays. The test now is how quickly Boeing can convert those orders into deliveries, much of it from the North Line at its plant in Everett, Washington.
What to watch: Boeing's third quarter results on October 27, where investors will look for a first delivery date and an update on production rates, and whether the 777-9, still in flight testing, follows on a firmer timetable.
