FAA Clears Path for 737 MAX 10

Boeing's 737 MAX 10 has cleared its last real hurdle. The FAA's final type certification board meeting wrapped successfully on Friday, and formal type certification is now expected within days. The certification flight test programme itself closed back in July — 976 flights and more than 2,060 test hours — so what remained was paperwork and one stubborn software question.

The board's sign-off came with a decision on that software question. And the FAA's answer was, in effect: not a safety problem, certify it.

The U14 question, answered

The open item involved flight management computer software versions U14 and U14.1. In some go-around conditions, the software can stop the autopilot from following its programmed VNAV vertical path. Two things matter for crews reading this. First, the aircraft remains controllable when it happens. Second, pilots get clear indications that the vertical path guidance has dropped off — no silent failure, no guessing about what the autoflight system is doing.

The FAA reviewed the behaviour and deemed it not a safety concern. Rather than hold the certificate for a mandatory fix, the agency issued a Special Airworthiness Information Bulletin — a non-mandatory advisory — covering both the 737 MAX and the 737NG running the affected software. An SAIB carries information to operators without the force of an airworthiness directive, and that distinction is the whole story here: the regulator looked at U14, looked at the pilot procedures, and decided an advisory was enough.

If the issue sounds familiar, it's because we covered the FAA's review of it earlier this month, back when it looked capable of pushing certification out further.

The operators had already hedged

The US majors didn't wait for the board to meet. Alaska, American, Southwest and United have all confirmed their in-service MAX fleets avoid U14 — they're running the older U13 software instead. United went one step further, confirming it will not take deliveries of U14-equipped aircraft at all.

Boeing's permanent software update had been slated for 2028. The company is now working to bring that timeline forward, and in the meantime crews have a procedure to re-engage VNAV when the behaviour shows up. It's the kind of interim arrangement that keeps aeroplanes flying while engineers build the permanent solution — the sort of documented call that fits the FAA's continued rebuilding of its certification and oversight programme at Boeing, a process we've tracked since the agency took back key airworthiness authority.

Two years from finding to fleet notice

The part of this story that deserves scrutiny is the timeline. WestJet flagged the issue after a November 2024 test flight. Boeing informed operators roughly two years later. A behaviour that's controllable and clearly indicated, yes — but a two-year gap between a launch customer's test finding and fleet-wide notice is the kind of lag that erodes trust even when the technical assessment is sound.

The type programme itself moved quickly once the software question was settled. The MAX 10's certification flight testing finished in July with 976 flights and more than 2,060 hours logged. The smaller MAX 7 was certified in August with newer software in place — a sign that U14 was a configuration question, not a family-wide design problem.

Who flies it first

The delivery order is set. WestJet is the launch customer, taking its first MAX 10s in northern spring 2027. Alaska has its first airframe arriving that same spring, with the type in service by mid-May 2027. Ryanair follows with its first 15 jets in spring 2027 as well. United anchors the backlog as the largest customer, holding 167 firm orders.

For crews, the MAX 10 slots into the existing 737 type rating, so airline transitions are a differences course rather than a full new type rating — the common-rating logic that has kept 737 family moves comparatively cheap for decades.

Why it matters

For Part 121 operators, a certified MAX 10 finally turns order books into fleet plans. Airlines have been holding MAX 10 commitments for years — United alone at 167 — and every month of delay pushed replacement and growth capacity further out. Certification within days makes the spring 2027 delivery dates real schedule inputs rather than hopes. The long certification timeline that defined this programme is now, at last, a closing chapter.

It also matters for the credibility of the certification system. The FAA examined a known software behaviour, made a documented call that it isn't a safety issue, and issued advisory material so every affected operator knows the score. That's the process working as designed — the same process that issued the MAX 7's August certificate. A permanent U14 fix arriving before its original 2028 date would be the clean ending this programme has been waiting for.

What we're watching

• The formal type certificate itself, expected within days.
• Boeing's revised timeline for the permanent U14/U14.1 software update, previously slated for 2028.
• Whether 737NG operators running the affected software respond to the SAIB with fleet reviews.
• First deliveries in spring 2027 — WestJet first, Alaska in service by mid-May, Ryanair's first 15 following.
• United's acceptance line as production jets with U14 come off the line in the meantime.