(New York) The United States Congress cleared the way on Tuesday for an exemption that would facilitate the certification of new models of Boeing 737 MAX, which the manufacturer considered to abandon without this legislative boost.
The 737 MAX 10 model, awaiting certification as the Model 7, incorporates improvements to the pilot incident alert system, but does not comply with new safety standards.
Compliance would have required major modifications to the cockpit.
In a document submitted to the stock market regulator in October, Boeing said that failing to obtain the exemption for models 7 and 10 of the 737 MAX, it planned to abandon their production, a decision which would have had serious financial consequences for the company. aircraft manufacturer.
The article included on Tuesday in a massive budget bill, the main purpose of which is to authorize operating expenses of the American State, requires Boeing to put in place on the model 7 the same improvements as those whose benefited the 737 MAX 10.
The bill must be put to a vote in the US Senate during the week, which would allow the exemption to be approved before the deadline, initially set for December 27.
The new device wanted by the American authorities aimed to improve the safety of the 737 MAX, after two accidents which occurred in October 2018 and March 2019, which had caused the death of 346 people.
These two tragedies had led to the immobilization of the 737 MAX for 20 months.
At the beginning of November, the head of Boeing’s commercial division, Stan Deal, had indicated that the aircraft manufacturer did not expect certification of the 737-10, the longest version of the MAX family, “before the end of 2023, beginning of 2024”.
Boeing hopes to deliver 400 to 500 737 aircraft next year.