Boeing expects MAX 7 to be certified before MAX 10 – executive

NEW DELHI (Reuters) -Boeing Co expects the 737 MAX 7 will be certified by the end of the year and the larger MAX 10 in the first half of 2023, a company executive said on Thursday.

The planemaker faces a year-end deadline from U.S. lawmakers for both or will need to meet new cockpit alerting requirements unless waived.

“The MAX 7, that’d be the first one to come in. The MAX 10 will be right behind that,” John Dyson, product marketing specialist at Boeing Commercial Airplanes, told reporters before providing more specific dates to Reuters after a briefing.

Major customer Ryanair Holdings PLC on Tuesday said that Boeing appeared to have accepted it would not be able to certify the MAX 10 by the year end, but it remained possible that U.S. lawmakers could give it more time.

Dyson said Boeing was in talks with lawmakers and regulators about extending the deadline to ensure that all planes in the MAX family would have the same crew alerting system.

The regulatory issues could force Boeing to cancel the MAX 10 if the deadline is not extended, Boeing Chief Executive Dave Calhoun said in July.

The 2022 deadline was mandated by Congress as part of broader regulatory reforms at the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration after fatal 737 MAX crashes in 2018 and 2019 killed 346 people.

Boeing’s biggest 737 customer, Southwest Airlines, said in July it expects no MAX 7 deliveries this year.

(Reporting by Aditi Shah; writing by Jamie Freed; Editing by Alex Richardson and Himani Sarkar)