Boeing wins US approval for largest 737 Max variant after years of delay

The Federal Aviation Administration has certified the Boeing 737 Max 10, the largest version of the aircraft maker's workhorse single-aisle jet, clearing the way for deliveries after years of regulatory delay.

The approval came after the FAA examined a newly disclosed software flaw that surfaced in late September and briefly threatened to push the certification timeline back further. The agency determined the problem did not stand in the way of certifying the aircraft.

The 737 Max 10 can carry up to 230 passengers and is Boeing's answer to the Airbus A321neo, the top-selling member of Airbus's rival narrow-body family. Boeing has booked more than 1,500 orders for the variant, making it a central piece of the company's effort to compete with its European rival in the single-aisle market.

The smallest member of the Max family, the 737 Max 7, received FAA certification in August. With the Max 10 now cleared, Boeing has worked through certification of nearly its entire re-engined 737 lineup, a process that has stretched on for years longer than originally planned.

The 737 Max line is the same model that plunged Boeing into the deepest crisis in its history. Two crashes, a Lion Air flight in October 2018 and an Ethiopian Airlines flight in March 2019, killed a combined 346 people.

Investigators traced the crashes to an automated flight-control system known as MCAS, designed to help pilots but found to have pushed the aircraft's nose down too forcefully under certain conditions. During the original certification of the 737 Max, Boeing employees had told US regulators that special pilot training on the software was not necessary, a judgment that came under scrutiny once the system's role in the crashes became clear.

Boeing was forced to halt production of the 737 Max in the aftermath of the crashes, and output of the jet remains constrained even now, years later. The grounding and subsequent fallout cost the company billions of dollars and damaged its reputation with airlines, regulators and the flying public.

The jet has frequently been described as trouble-prone because of a string of additional problems that have surfaced since the 2019 grounding was lifted. Confidence in Boeing's quality controls was shaken again in January 2024, when a fuselage panel on a nearly new 737 blew out during a climb, prompting fresh regulatory scrutiny of the company's manufacturing practices.

The certification of the Max 10 does not immediately resolve every outstanding question facing Boeing's 737 program. The FAA has kept a tighter watch over the company's production lines following the January 2024 incident, and output limits imposed on the Max family remain in place.

Still, the approval removes one of the last major regulatory hurdles standing between Boeing and the delivery of an aircraft that airlines around the world have been waiting years to receive. Carriers that placed early orders for the Max 10 have had to adjust fleet plans repeatedly as the certification process dragged on, in some cases leaning on older aircraft or rival Airbus jets to cover the gap.

Boeing has not released a detailed schedule for when the first Max 10 deliveries will begin following the certification decision. The company continues to operate under heightened oversight from the FAA as it works to demonstrate that the quality and safety problems that have dogged the 737 program in recent years have been addressed.