United Airlines has officially given up on the Boeing 737 MAX 10, for now. During a conference today, United’s CEO said the airline asked Boeing to stop building the MAX 10s and to build MAX 9s.
Switching the plans
The bad news keeps coming for Boeing, one of the world’s most storied aircraft manufacturers. Recent headlines, such as the Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 9 door plug blowout and missing documentation regarding the work done on that plane, have certainly not been favorable for Boeing. And today’s remarks from Scott Kirby are a massive statement regarding United’s trust, or lack thereof, in the manufacturer.
Earlier today, during the J.P. Morgan Industrials Conference, Kirby, United’s CEO, said the airline had told Boeing to stop making MAX 10s and instead replace those with MAX 9s. In January, after the Alaska Airlines incident, Kirby said that United would need to consider planning a future without the MAX 10, as it is still pending certification. Early this month, Simple Flying reported that those plans had already been made. As of March 1, United was still awaiting 34 MAX 9s, more than half of which it expects to receive this year. At this time, it is unclear how many MAX 10s will be swapped for 9s.
A 10-K filing with the SEC revealed that United had no plans of receiving any MAX 10s between now and after 2025. The filing outlined the deliveries expected in 2024 and 2025, detailing the numbers for its Airbus A321neos, Boeing 787s, and 737 MAX 8s and 9s. United specified that the removal of the MAX 10 from its delivery outlook was due to the unknown certification timeframe for the largest variant of the MAX family.
Today, Kirby said,
“We’ve asked Boeing to stop building Max 10s, which they’ve done, for us and start building Max 9s. It’s impossible to say when the Max 10 is going to get certified.”
Boeing’s woes = Airbus’ advantage
In addition to telling Boeing to swap the MAX 10 for the 9, he did confirm reports that United was hoping to swap orders for the MAX 10 for the Airbus A321neo, the newest addition to the airline’s fleet. Currently, United’s commitment to A321neos totals 126 aircraft, following its second order for 60 planes, placed in October.
“We are in the market for A321s, and if we get a deal where the economics work, we’ll do something. If we don’t, we won’t and will wind up with more Max 9s.”
United had ordered 277 MAX 10s, more than any other customer, and is set to become the launch customer for the type whenever it is certified. In addition to its 277 aircraft on firm order, it has options for a further 200. However, it’s uncertain what this deal would eventually look like.
The first non-prototype MAX 10 has already been painted in a United livery and was seen by Simple Flying during a visit to Boeing’s facilities in South Carolina in December 2022. In October 2023, it was unveiled that Boeing’s latest ecoDemonstrator was a MAX 10 with a United livery.