According to a report Thursday, Boeing’s CEO said the company could cancel the 737 MAX 10 if regulators don’t certify the jet before new crew warning system standards take effect in December.
The planemaker echoed comments from Boeing chief executive Dave Calhoun, who told Aviation Week that the discontinuation of the MAX 10 was “not that ominous” given some other challenges the company has faced in recent years.
“The (737-10) is a little bit all or nothing,” he told the publication.
Calhoun has previously spoken hopefully of a solution to the problem, which Congress could resolve if the plane is not certified in time.
But the Federal Aviation Administration has taken longer to approve Boeing planes after the agency was criticized after two fatal crashes of earlier versions of the 737 MAX that grounded the plane worldwide for more than a year.
A December 2020 law passed by the US Congress required the FAA to certify only aircraft equipped with a flight crew alert system designed to help pilots prioritize in-flight activated warnings and alerts.
The 737 MAX 10’s warning system shares characteristics of previous MAX aircraft and does not conform to the new standards. Boeing has argued the benefit of the MAX 10’s “commonality” with previous versions of the jets, allowing pilots with experience in previous versions of the MAX to transition to the MAX 10 with ease.
The system requirement under the 2020 law — passed amid criticism from both Boeing and the FAA in the wake of the MAX crashes — takes effect December 27, 2022, effectively establishing a two-year exemption for jets already in the certification process.
The requirement can only be expanded by new US legislation that sets the stage for what Aviation Week has described as an “impending standoff” between Boeing and Congress.
“As we have said before, we are transparently working with the FAA to provide the information they need and are committed to meeting their and our customers’ expectations to certify and deliver the 737-10,” said a Boeing spokesman. “Safety remains the driving factor in this effort.”
The FAA declined to provide a timeline for the MAX 10.
“Safety drives the timeline of certification projects,” said an FAA spokesman. “We cannot talk about ongoing certification projects.”
Michel Merluzeau, an aviation expert at AIR Inc., said the cancellation of the MAX 10 could result in a year’s loss of production for the jet. More importantly, such a move would enable competitor Airbus to make further profits in the narrow-body aircraft market, he said.
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