Boeing’s MAX 10 Is Cleared, Not Fixed

Last Friday, the FAA's Corrective Action Review Board concluded that the flight-management software glitch holding up the 737 MAX 10 "is not a safety concern," because "pilots retain full control of the aircraft and the indications to the flight crew are clear and unambiguous." Certification, which looked days away on September 16 and then stalled, is back on track, with approval now expected as soon as later this month. That's the headline. The more useful reading is narrower: the FAA cleared the certification. It did not clear the software. Those are different problems, and only one of them has been solved. What the FAA Decided The issue is with the 737's flight management computer, in versions U14 and U14.1 supplied by GE Aerospace. After a go-around, when pilots reprogram the flight path, vertical navigation (VNAV) can drop out and revert to basic pitch modes such as level change or vertical speed. The crew has to take extra steps before automated guidance resumes. The workload increases at the least welcome moment, close to the ground on a missed approach. The FAA's board judged that acceptable on safety grounds. Administrator Bryan Bedford framed it as a pilot-workload question, not a control-authority one, and stressed it is unrelated to MCAS. The practical consequence is that the MAX 10 can proceed toward certification without a mandatory software update first. Boeing is issuing special bulletins on recognizing and managing the behavior, and the FAA is issuing complementary guidance. The timing is worth noting. Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary said at a Warsaw conference on September 29 that the delay would be "a matter of days, not weeks or months." Bedford's own assessment at the time was that it could take days, weeks or months. The FAA ruled three days later. O'Leary, who has 150 MAX 10s on firm order and expects the first 15 in spring 2027, read it correctly. Where the Software Still Isn't Fixed Boeing and GE are still working on a permanent fix for FMS Update 14.1, which is the only version compatible with both the 737-7 and the 737-10. Until it exists, the two newest variants have the software flaw. That is where customers part ways with the regulator. Southwest and United have both said they will not accept new 737-7 and 737-10 aircraft running flawed software. Southwest is the MAX 7's anchor customer, and United is the MAX 10's largest. For the MAX 8 and MAX 9, Boeing already rolled the software back to earlier versions to satisfy buyers. No equivalent rollback is available for the -7 and -10, because the earlier builds don't support them. So Boeing can win its certification this month and still not be able to hand over a MAX 7 to Southwest. The MAX 7 was certified in August, and its deliveries are gated by an acceptance decision the FAA's ruling doesn't touch. The binding constraint on those aircraft has shifted from the regulator to the customer, and from there to the pace of Boeing's and GE's fix. Southwest and Boeing also disagree over who pays for dated materials (like tires) on the long-parked MAX 7s. That distinction matters for the broader backlog picture. The MAX 10 has roughly 1,500 aircraft on order. Deliveries are still expected to begin in 2027, so a fix that arrives within months leaves the schedule intact. A slip would not hold up certification, but it would delay the first deliveries of the aircraft certification is meant to unlock. A Timeline Question Boeing Hasn't Answered The public record on when this was known doesn't line up neatly, and we'd want Boeing to clarify it. Reporting from Air Data News indicates WestJet pilots first identified the anomaly during a validation flight in 2024, with no related incident in passenger service. AvWeb reports Boeing informed 737 operators of the problem in August 2026. The issue became broadly public only after the Wall Street Journal reported it on September 26, roughly two weeks after CEO Kelly Ortberg told the industry certification was coming "very soon." These accounts come from different outlets and may describe different stages: first observation, root-cause identification, a formal operator notification. We can't tell from what's published which interval is which. But if the behavior was seen in 2024 and operators were formally told in August 2026, reasonable readers must ask what happened in between, and why the first public acknowledgment came days after the CEO's optimistic timeline. Boeing hasn't addressed this in anything we've found. Boeing MAX 10 What It Means for the Rest of the Story Two weeks ago we asked whether this software issue represented a new constraint on Boeing's ability to deliver, and flagged it as a certification and configuration problem, distinct from the engine, casting, and window shortages that have limited output all year. The FAA's decision supports that reading. The regulatory risk is gone. What remains is a narrower delivery risk confined to the two newest variants, with the MAX 8 and MAX 9, the aircraft most operators are actually receiving, protected by the software rollback. Boeing's own production story hasn't changed. Output at 47 a month is still a target, not an achievement, and a certified MAX 10 doesn't add aircraft to the monthly count until 2027. Certification is a milestone, not a rate. Bottom Line The FAA has taken the regulatory risk off the MAX 10, and Boeing will likely certify the aircraft this month. But the flawed software is still on the airplane, the permanent fix is still in development, and the two customers that matter most for the -7 and -10 have said they won't take deliveries until it's resolved. "Cleared" and "fixed" are not the same word. The next date to watch isn't the certification announcement. It's the one when Boeing and GE say the corrected software is available, because that's when the first MAX 7s and MAX 10s can actually leave the factory for the airlines that ordered them.

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