Boeing does not expect to obtain the certification of the 737 MAX 10 before the summer of 2023, according to a letter from the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Reuters reported.
Days earlier, the regulator had informed the aerospace manufacturer that the required documentation submitted to certify the MAX 7 variant, the smallest of the family, was inadequate and therefore the process was unlikely to be completed before 31 December this year.
Last March, another document stated that the approval process for the MAX 10, the largest and variant of the family, was unlikely to be ahieved by 2022.
A key date
This deadline intensifies concerns about the manufacturer’s delivery schedule: on 1 January, the Aircraft Certification, Safety and Accountability Act (ACSAA) will come into force and will tighten the conditions required to obtain a type certificate for a new aircraft.
The new regulation, approved in 2020, came in response to the controversy surrounding the nature of the process that previously allowed the certification of the MAX 8 and MAX 9 variants, the only ones currently operating commercially, in an expedited manner (and with the well-known results).
For that reason, Boeing will have to comply with the new requirements for cockpit warning systems, which are much more demanding than those that allowed the Federal Aviation Administration to grant a waiver of the need to upgrade these mechanisms. The only way to avoid this would be to obtain an extension from the United States Congress.
Three possibilities
In the letter sent to the manufacturer on 19 September and made public last week, the government transportation agency made clear its concern about the likely scenario that certification of both variants would not be completed by the end of this year. Boeing would have to get the MAX 7 approved first, as the MAX 10’s authorisation depends on some of the first one’s documentation, said Dave Calhoun, the company’s CEO.
In July, Boeing had threatened to cancel development of the MAX 10 if the legislature did not extend the deadline for the plane to enter into service without a new crew warning system.
However, Calhoun said last month that he still believed it was possible the Federal Aviation Administration would approve the MAX 7 this year and that there was still «a chance» the MAX 10 would meet the same fate. If not, the manufacturer will either have to redesign the model to meet the new requirements or get Congress to grant it the extension it wants.
