Boeing is in early stages planning for a new narrowbody plane to replace the 737 MAX. CEO Kelly Ortberg reportedly met with Rolls-Royce officials in the UK to discuss designing a new engine for the aircraft. They’re also said to have begun preliminary design work on the plane’s flight deck.
A new senior product executive within Boeing’s commercial aircraft arm has been appointed, likely to oversee design direction, with an aim towards 20% greater efficiency than current single aisle jets.
Boeing is currently working to restore production credibility and deliver its backlog of 6,000 jets. They have yet to successfully certify the 737 MAX 7 or 10, and their widebody 777X project faces incessant delays as well.
Still, there’s progress as the FAA is set to partially restore their ability to self-certify the airworthiness of some 737 MAX and 787 aircraft for delivery. Following the cabin panel blowout on an Alaska Airlines plane in January 2024, Boeing has had a production cap of 38 MAX jets per month. Issues at its Renton facility pushed production down to 31 MAXs monthly.
We don’t yet know whether Boeing aims this new aircraft to compete broadly with Airbus A320neo/XLR, or occupy a different niche such as lower capacity or short haul.
If we take this reporting at face value, the picture is: Boeing is quietly repositioning toward a future successor to the 737 MAX, engaging with Rolls-Royce for propulsion leadership, doing early cockpit design work, reorganizing internally, while publicly prioritizing recovery and backlog clearance. But everything is at the “pre-option, conceptual” stage.
Assuming a new aircraft, Boeing surely learned that they stretched the 737 too far witht he MAX. A credible competitor for the futre demands new geometry — perhaps a wider cabin cross-section, taller landing gear, and higher bypass ratio engines.
They should prioritize cockpit modernity, avoiding the MAX trap of grandfathering an old type certificate just to spare training costs. And they should focus on maintainability, building in predictive maintenance systems and easy access panels from day one.
Airbus currently owns the 200-240 seat, 4,000 nautical mile segment. Boeing has nothing competitive. It seems most likely they’d aim for this segment but with two fuselage sizes:
- A ~170-seat version to replace 737-8/9
- A ~220-240 seat version to compete with the A321
With the huge backlog in order books, the binding constraint has been production but airline demand is currently strong and there’s potential especially with the large U.S. carriers to get an early order for mid-2030s fleet renewal.
However, Boeing needs to fix its culture before actually building a new airplane. The FAA and airlines won’t tolerate shortcuts. Boeing has to demonstrate structural reform in quality, engineering authority, and certification transparency. They need to bring regulators into the design loop well before rollout to avoid multi-year certification delays. And they need to line everything up before public launch – no faking readiness like they did with the 787.
And there needs to be a clear future-oriented vision, not merely a reaction to Airbus and ‘me too’ product. But it still needs financial discipline, and hard supplier commitments backed by real dollars.
It’ll perhaps take a couple of years to firm the concept and firm an engine partner and socialize the concept with airlines.
Then they’re looking at program launch and firming of design; signing supplier contracts; building a new assembly line; and building mockups and demonstrators.
Prototypes and testing won’t happen until 2030-2033 at the earliest. That will be followed by 2–3 years of test flying. And it means we likely don’t see first deliveries until 2035 – 10 years into the future.
It’s insane how behind they’ve let themselves get for this part of the market
Was just reading that article on this in the WSJ. Wish Boeing had kept the 757 line running, because that would’ve been a better airframe for newer, larger, more efficient engines that they instead tried to strap onto the 737, resulting in the MCAS debacle (on hundreds of deaths….) So, we doin’ a 797, finally?
It’s about time, if true.
As per 1990’s comment..
Boeing should have kept the 757 line. New engines etc on the 757 and Boeing would once more have a competitor to the Airbus 321 family…
Laughable to suggest Boeing didn’t “bring regulators into the design loop” early in the past. Going back decades, the FAA will come into any new program with clenched fists, demanding more testing, extracting more something to alter longstanding design practices to show who is in control.
1990
the 757 had a massive wing and huge engines for a narrowbody which it gave it great performance (no MAX or A320NEO will beat it) – but that is unnecessary and adds operational cost for the vast majority of missions. The majority of incremental weight of an aircraft comes w/ the wing.
Boeing does not appear to be looking at something that can also be a replacement for the 767 -a small widebody.
I suspect that Boeing will go with a new, wider narrowbody fuselage that can support larger engines and transatlantic range but still have good economics even for domestic ops. It might need two wing options to not be too heavy for shorter, smaller flights and a larger wing for longer, larger fuselages
and remember that Airbus is likely to launch the A220-500 which will hit at the heart of the MAX family and also obsolete the A320NEO, leaving Airbus’ with the A321NEO – which has sold more than the entire MAX family. Airbus might enhance the wing on the A321NEO to support a stretch.
The chances are this next narrowbody and Airbus’ response (or vice versa) will be evolutionary, rather than revolutionary.
And a certain airline that has about 500 narrowbodies on order might find that they are getting the last 200 copies of their current order book just as a new generation narrowbody is rolling into the fleets of its competitors.
Has Boeing earned the privilege to be able to “self certify”? That one line makes me pretty nervous.
I’d rather employ Airbus to certify Boeing equipment and visa versa. Pay them for every valid issue they identify.
@Tim Dunn — The a220 is indeed a beautiful and versatile aircraft (good range, big beautiful windows, passenger-friendly 2-3 configuration in Economy, and more). Delta made an excellent decision to go with it to replace aging 717 and a319s from NWA; otherwise, they could have gone with Embraer E2 (an impressive 2,000-3,000 nautical miles depending on variant for such a small aircraft; Porter has been flying them from YYZ-LAX, for instance). So, time to ditch the CRJs. Funny how American and United didn’t seriously consider the a220 (their loss.)
757 had a large wing, and it was not just a matter of ‘strapping the MAX engines’ onto it. It would not have had the efficiency needed to compete, or shrink. The MAX engines did not have more thrust – they had more efficiency which you only get with a larger fan and higher bypass ratio (as technology allows you to run the core harder). There was nothing new in the 35-40k engines class 20 years ago when the 757 was sunset, and nobody was buying it. 737 operators were adamant that the next gen 737 have common type, minimal transition training. It can be hard to overcome an installed base numbering 10,000.
TD: “a certain airline that has about 500 narrowbodies on order might find that they are getting the last 200 copies of their current order book just as a new generation narrowbody is rolling into the fleets of its competitors.”
‘A certain airline’ (UA) has 225 MAX orders/deliveries post-2026 of which 167 are MAX 10s. Who knows if the MAX 10 ever happens, but the launch customer (DL) has 100/30 orders/options for the MAX 10s.
UA has 212 A321NEO/XLR orders.
DL became the launch customer for the MAX 10 because UA couldn’t wait for the model so converted their orders for other models, something DL could do.
You also realize that DL’s 737-900ER order came from converting the former NW 787 order?
Boeing and Airbus convert models all the time.
The point that you miss in defending UA is that overordering in one decade means you have too few next generation aircraft in the following decade.
AA did that in the decade of the 2010s, has a young fleet but a lower percentage of new generation models than DL or UA, and UA is doing it in the 2020s and will face the same problem in the 2030s.
and DL already has the A220 which gets fuel economy per seat as good as larger aircraft and they will very likely order the A220-500 when Airbus rolls it out.
As hard as it is for you to admit, UA’s massive fleet replacement strategy not only will cause it to lose out on new generation aircraft in the next decade but they will not get some models like the 35K that will be simply game-changing for the US airline industry and which DL will enjoy for years even if UA orders the A350 today.
How many of the 6000 order MAX backlog will convert to the new plane if Boeing comes out with it before the backlog is burned off?
If they continue MAX production and the new plane, they will need a new production line somewhere. State of Washington will probably throw money at Boeing to ensure the production line is in the PNW.
Absolute must: 10-12in wider cabin, so seat width is 1-1.5in better (at or better than A320 family) and an extra inch in the aisle to speed boarding and deplaning. Also will reduce bumps from galley carts.
55:1 seat to lavatory ratio cap would be great too.
TD: “overordering in one decade means you have too few next generation aircraft in the following decade.”
Depends on your assumption regarding the size of the airline. What is pretty obvious that you don’t understand the game that is being played right now with only three airlines making $ in the U.S.
In the old days, aerospace giants used to “bet the company” on each major project. Sometimes they ended up with world beater (747 is the famous example of this story arc), sometimes they didn’t quite hit the mark and it was the end of the line (L-1011), sometimes things got complicated (RB211).
The MAX debacle will be a case study in ethics in business schools and engineering schools for a long time to come, a case study in what not to do (lol). The 787 program hasn’t exactly been a shining case study of how to take a successful company and make it even more successful (cough cough). Let’s hope for Boeing’s sake that the new narrowbody will be a positive case study instead of a negative one.