Ryanair boss' tip about Boeing 737 MAX 7 and MAX 10: When they can enter service
We will have to wait at least another year to see even the last of the 737 MAX models certified by the authorities responsible for the [...]
Ryanair
We will have to wait at least one more year to also see the latest of the 737 MAX models certified by the authorities responsible for aviation security. The MAX 10, the highest-capacity version of the family, Will only get the green light for deliveries in the second half of 2025. While for the smaller 'brother' of the latest 737 series, the MAX 7, the timing should be a little faster and The plane is expected to enter service during the first half of next year.
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To reveal this, in the course of a press conference held in Milan at which he outlined his company's developments in the Italian market, was Ryanair founder and CEO Michael O'Leary. Its low-cost is not interested in the MAX 7, which is too small for the carrier's economies of scale. But Is among the clients of the MAX 10, which will be the flagship aircraft, among those operated by Ryanair, in terms of capacity with as many as 226 places (i.e. 37 more than the 737-800 and 26 more than the MAX 8-200).
O'Leary, who during the meeting with reporters expressed his bitterness over the delays in MAX deliveries made to his company during 2024, explained that "the MAX 10 will be certified in the second half of 2025, and if things go like this we will receive our first 226 in the spring of 2027 and expect to receive a total of 17 by the end of that year".
The mishaps (but it would be more accurate to call them tragedies or near tragedies) involving the Boeing 737 MAX are known to all: the two models so far in circulation the MAX 8 and MAX 9, have been the protagonists of two crashes with almost 350 fatalities and a near-disaster, the accident that occurred to the aircraft of Alaska Airlines that 'lost' an airlock minutes after takeoff.
Because of this, the U.S. manufacturer's programs have come under very close scrutiny first and foremost from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the U.S. Federal Aviation Safety Administration. This was and is the case for the 737 MAX and the same thing has happened and is happening with regard to the Boeing 777X.
The MAX 7 and MAX 10, in particular, made their first flights in March 2018 and June 2021, respectively. But since then, while Boeing is continuing flight testing, the FAA has not provided any date regarding the official start of their certification pathway (which has happened instead, recently, for the 777X)..
Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, Airbus has developed and certified the A321neo (also in its long-range -LR and -XLR versions), enjoying enormous commercial success partly because of the absence of a viable alternative in the market, since Boeing has not found a way to give a worthy heir to the venerable 757.
In theory, that role should have been taken, in the intentions of the American manufacturer, by the MAX 10. That, however, in addition to still not having received certification more than three years after its first flight, does not even possess the features to compete with the A321neo, and in particular with the -LR and -XLR, both in terms of capacity and, more importantly, in terms of range: the Everett jet, in fact, stops at 6,100km, while the neos get to 6,400km the 'basic' version, 7,400km the -LR and 8,300km the -XLR. For the record, the Boeing 757 goes as far as 7,200km nonstop.
In short, a flop, to the point that in recent weeks. Boeing Commercial Airplanes' new CEO, Stephanie Pope, returned to talk about the development of the Boeing 797, described as a 'midsize jet' that should fill the void left by the 757.
