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The Federal Aviation Administration on Tuesday certified Boeing’s largest MAX variant, the 737 MAX 10, after years of manufacturing and regulatory hurdles.
The FAA’s decision clears the way for Boeing to begin delivering the MAX 10 to customers and brings airlines one step closer to flying passengers on board the newest aircraft. It is also a milestone for Boeing’s certification programs that stalled while the plane-maker worked to recover from several tumultuous years.
In August, the FAA greenlit the MAX 7, Boeing’s smallest MAX variant. Boeing is separately still working to certify its 777X family, which includes two passenger aircraft and a freighter.
On Tuesday, the FAA issued an amended type certificate for the MAX 10, which confirms that the plane complies with all design and safety requirements, and an updated Production Limitation Record, which authorizes Boeing to begin producing the new aircraft.
“The FAA’s decision follows a thorough review of the aircraft’s design and safety requirements,” FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said in a statement Tuesday. “We will continue to hold Boeing to the highest safety standards as the company begins production of the 737 MAX-10.”
At a celebratory event at Boeing’s Everett delivery center on Tuesday, Boeing Commercial Airplanes CEO Stephanie Pope said the MAX 10 will “set a new standard in commercial aviation.”
“Today is a very, very special day,” Pope said. “It caps years of hard work and dedication by many; it marks another major milestone in our recovery; and it unlocks the key to our future growth.”
U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy hailed the certification as a “major win for American manufacturing and our nation’s status as a global aviation powerhouse.”
“After extensive safety reviews — including thousands of hours of test flights — the team at the FAA is ready to approve this critical aircraft for sale,” Duffy said in a statement.
At the Everett event, he pledged to speed up the certification process, which took nearly a decade for the MAX 7 and 10.
“I have to allow you all to certify aircraft faster, we have to come to market more quickly and we can never lose sight of safety,” Duffy said.
Before granting certification, the FAA said Tuesday, it required Boeing to incorporate “key improvements” to address safety legislation passed after two fatal 737 MAX crashes, including updating the aircraft’s flight control system with an enhanced angle-of-attack sensor.
That sensor was at the center of the two deadly crashes in 2018 and 2019, which killed 346 people. In those cases, an erroneous read from the sensor triggered a new software system, which repeatedly pushed the plane’s nose down and caused the pilots to lose control.
The FAA required similar “key improvements” before certifying the MAX 7 earlier this year. Those improvements included a fix to the aircraft’s engine anti-ice system. Boeing finalized design changes for the engine anti-ice system and the enhanced angle-of-attack sensor earlier this year, the plane-maker told reporters at a briefing in July.
With more than 1,500 orders, the MAX 10 accounts for the second-highest number of orders in the MAX family. Boeing has booked just over 200 orders for the MAX 7.
In January, Alaska Airlines ordered 105 MAX 10 aircraft, with options for 35 more, marking the largest order in the company’s history. The carrier plans to capitalize on the larger variant with new lie-flat suites in the narrowbody plane, another first for Alaska.
“The MAX 10 is an important part of Alaska’s long-term fleet strategy and our future,” CEO Ben Minicucci said in a statement Tuesday. “Certification of the MAX 10 has been a rigorous, deliberate process, and we respect the work the FAA and Boeing have put into it.”
Alaska expects its first MAX 10 delivery in the second quarter of 2027.
The MAX 10 will carry more passengers than any other MAX variant, with room for 185 to 210 seats and a maximum of 230, but will fly shorter distances, with a range up to 3,100 nautical miles. The MAX 7, on the other end of the spectrum, carries 135 to160 passengers and a maximum of 172 and travels up to 3,800 nautical miles.
The MAX 10 will also be able to carry the most of any MAX variant, with a maximum takeoff weight of 197,900 pounds, more than 3,200 pounds greater than the next-largest MAX model, the 9.
Boeing will assemble the MAX 10 in Renton and on its newest MAX assembly line in Everett. Because the Everett line is larger than Boeing’s three other MAX lines, it can hold more MAX 10s. While Renton lines would need to stagger MAX 10s between other, smaller variants, the Everett line could be filled entirely with MAX 10s, nose to tail.
The MAX 10 certification was briefly thrown into question last month while the FAA reviewed a software glitch to determine if it posed a safety concern. The regulator quickly determined the glitch, which shuts off an automated navigation system in some circumstances, did not raise a safety risk and would not delay certification.
Fred Siebert, who is part of a group of Boeing employees who sign off on tasks for the FAA, said the MAX 10 certification feels like watching a child graduate college. With 23 years at Boeing, Siebert has been with the MAX program since its “infancy” a decade ago.
“It’s amazing,” he said at Tuesday’s event. “We’ve been so focused on the MAX, both emotionally and the work we’ve put into it, so it’s a big deal.”
Still, the mood on the factory floor has been business as usual, Siebert said, even as rumors swirled that certification was near. Employees have been there before, Siebert said, stuck in a loop of “we’re there, we’re not there.”
On Tuesday, Siebert said he and his colleagues feel an immense sense of pride.
Work for the MAX 10 will now shift from Boeing’s development team, a group of roughly 350 people, to the production team that oversees the MAX 7, 8 and 9, said Chris Payne, the vice president and general manager for 737 development programs.
The MAX 10 will be the last derivative for Boeing’s 737 fleet, Payne said.
The team is now laser-focused on completing 777X certification and then, Payne said, Boeing’s “next newer airplane.”
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