Alaska Air expects the 737 MAX 10 to be certified by end-September; the jet is about 31% of Boeing's 737 backlog

Alaska Airlines expects Boeing's 737 MAX 10 to win Federal Aviation Administration certification by the end of September, Chief Operating Officer Jason Berry told Reuters on Thursday. The airline plans to take its first MAX 10 next spring and put it into passenger service between April and mid-May 2027. Berry called that timeline "sporting," adding that the airline is "not panicking yet."

Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg has said certification is close, with flight testing complete and Boeing finishing paperwork with the FAA, Reuters reported. The MAX 10, the largest version of the 737, first flew on June 18, 2021, according to AeroTime, so certification has taken more than five years since then.

Why this matters more to Boeing than one airline

The MAX 10 makes up about 31% of Boeing's undelivered 737 orders, Reuters said. Boeing cannot deliver an uncertified model, so nearly a third of its largest program's backlog has been waiting on this one approval. Certification would not turn that into cash at once, because deliveries ramp up over years, but it would remove the biggest single hold on it.

Boeing closed Thursday at $196.74, down 1.6%, in a 52-week range of $176.77 to $254.35, according to Nasdaq.com. That leaves it about 23% below its 52-week high.

The small print on Alaska's schedule

FAA approval of the aircraft is not the last step for Alaska. The airline then has to certify its own head-up display for pilots, which Berry said takes "a few months." That is why a late-September sign-off turns into a spring delivery rather than a winter one.

Alaska ordered 105 MAX 10s in January, with rights to 35 more, and expects 22 deliveries in 2027 and 30 in 2028, Reuters reported. The 2027 target is the one to watch. If the first plane arrives in April, 22 in the year means about two to three a month from then on, with no room for more slippage. A later certification date could eat into that count.

The bigger jet, with up to 230 seats according to AeroTime, is how Alaska plans to add seats on busy routes such as New York and Boston without adding flights. Alaska shares closed at $40.04, up 0.9%, near the lower end of their 52-week range of $33.03 to $60.63.

What traders are watching

The next checkpoint is simple: whether the FAA announcement lands by Sept. 30, as Alaska expects. Boeing has said only that it is close. After that, the question shifts to how fast Boeing can build and hand over the MAX 10, which is what Alaska's 22-jet target for 2027 depends on.

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Sources: Reuters, AeroTime, Nasdaq.com. Share prices are Sept. 24, 2026 closing prices. This is market information, not investment advice.