Originally Posted by
remi
If I had to guess right now I'd give the MAX 10 even odds of never being sold.
Does Boeing still have an EICAS waiver for the max 7 and 10? One wonders if FAA will revisit this given that the certification schedules have probably incurred at least another 6-12 month delay. The last waiver was supposed to expire in September 2023 and idk what has happened since.
Congress extended the EICAS waiver for the MAX 10 (and I presume the 7 but I've not paid attention to that).
The 777X is essentially a new aircraft - very, very little is being carried over from the legacy 777 other than the fuselage diameter (even the fuselage structure is being changed to increase the interior diameter - should make the 10 across seating in steerage a little more tolerable). The 787-3 was dropped because it wasn't selling. As I've outlined before, 'shrinks' don't often work because you're still carrying a lot of extra weight and drag you don't need - so I don't hold that against them. The 777-300ER was a game changer, can the 777X pull off the same? Many of the delays in the 777X program have little to do with program itself - much of it was due to the diversion of resources to solve the MAX crisis as well as the MAX and 787 production issues - and don't forget COVID.
The real question is what will Boeing do when the 777X is certified and in-service. Back in the early 2000's, we joked that Boeing was turning into 'derivatives are us' - all Condit and Stonecypher were interested in was soaking the existing line for all it was worth - no investment in new products. It was a big breakthrough when the 787 was launched (I'd like to think that the Boeing engineer's strike in 2000 had something to do with that - upper management discovered to their dismay that engineering really was essential to the business). Unfortunately they used the MacDac model for the 787 development and that turned the program into a massive
-up. Will they be willing to make the needed investment in a new program to replace the 737 with a proper new aircraft, or will it revert back to the 'derivatives are us' mode?