The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is unlikely to certify the Boeing 737 MAX 7 before the end of the year, according to Billy Nolen, acting head of the FAA.
The end-of-the-year deadline will see a new safety standard for modern cockpit alerts on 737 MAX 7 and 737 MAX 10s will be implemented.
Nolen said it “does not appear” the aircraft will be certified before the year’s end while Boeing seeks a waiver from Congress of the deadline. The acting head of the FAA said he believed that the administration could not continue any certification work on the planes after late December without action from Congress, according to Reuters.
Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun said he was confident that his company would receive an extension from the US Congress of the deadline to get the MAX 7 and MAX 10 certified.
The deadline will mean that as of 27 December, all planes must have modern cockpit alerting systems certified by the FAA, which could delay the deployment of the new MAX aircraft unless US Congress grants a waiver.
Boeing said last month that it expects the 737 MAX 7 to be certified either this year or in 2023 and the MAX 10 to start FAA certification flight testing in 2022 or 2023 and begin flying in 2023 or 2024.
US senator Roger Wicker unsuccessfully tried to attach an extension of the MAX deadline to September 2024 to a defence bill earlier this month, and it was endorsed by the Chamber of Commerce.
The new requirements have been adopted by US Congress in a certification reform after two 737 MAX crashes killed 346 people and led to the plane being grounded for 20 months.
Featured Image: Boeing 737 MAX 7 (YouTube/Dj’s Aviation)
