Boeing’s long-delayed 737 MAX 10 should be certified by the FAA “very soon,” CEO Kelly Ortberg said this week.
“When I left Seattle yesterday, I think we had three deliverables to complete,” Ortberg told the audience at Morgan Stanley’s Laguna Conference on Wednesday. “The FAA work is quite a bit larger to review all that documentation than on the Dash 7, but we’re in close coordination with them and working on that and so I think you’re going to see that certification very soon.”
Ortberg reiterated that flight testing for the largest MAX variant is complete, and all that remains is the “documentation phase.”
“All the real work is done now,” he said.
Ortberg also said that the European Union Aviation Safety Agency flew the MAX 10 last week and was “very complimentary” of the aircraft.
Boeing has already started building its first production MAX 10s in Washington. The variant makes up roughly 30% of the company’s current backlog.
The MAX 10’s target certification date has slipped several times over the last six years, mainly due to supply chain issues, fallout from the 2018-19 MAX crisis, and problems with the model’s anti-ice system. Progress toward certification has picked up in the last two years, however.
777X Update
Ortberg also gave an update on the similarly delayed 777X when asked by Morgan Stanley analyst Kristine Tan Liwag about media reports that some buyers have concerns that the type’s technology may already be out of date.
The CEO said there has been no change in its initial ordered units, and that any concerns are being addressed directly with clients.
“They’re contract discussions we’re having with our customers,” he said. “And I think we’ve got that well understood and well contained within our estimate to complete out. I don’t want to negotiate publicly on who’s getting what airplane, but I think that’s not a big issue for us. It’s something we’ve contemplated.”
Elaborating on the 777X’s progress, Ortberg said flight tests are continuing, though the type still does not have Extended-range Twin-engine Operations Performance Standards (ETOPS) certification. The holdup is a mid-seal issue on the engines, he said.
“Until we get the mid-seal certification plan complete, we can’t get authorization to start that ETOPS,” he said. “We’re expecting that very soon. GE is working that diligently. I think they have to do a little more testing than what we originally planned. I think they’re still confident in the fix. So, we’ve got to get that done.”
Some testing may spill over into next year, Ortberg continued, but Boeing still expects to start deliveries of the 777X in 2027.
