Boeing’s chief financial officer Jay Malave on 2 December made clear the company is not close to launching development of a new commercial aircraft.
“The market has to be ready. The technology has to be ready. The Boeing company has to be ready,” Malave said during an investor conference hosted by UBS. “We don’t believe any of those factors have been met in any way.”
The comments come as stronger repudiation of any suggestion Boeing might be preparing to start developing a new jet – chiefly a 737 Max replacement.
A 29 September report in The Wall Street Journal said Boeing had made “a shift” in that regard, citing as evidence chief executive Kelly Ortberg having met this year in the UK with Rolls-Royce executives who pitched him on a new engine for a future narrowbody jet.
A few days later, citing “misleading media reports”, Boeing said it will only move forward with such a project when the company, technology and market are ready.
Malave now insists none of those requirements have yet been met nor are likely to be soon.
“We are a ways off from that,” he says.
“That doesn’t mean that we don’t invest in technology development… You just don’t put your head in the sand and not invest in technology, talk to suppliers and think about what next-generation technologies can be,” he adds. “But that in no way means that we’re ready to embark in any way on a new platform. That’s a ways out.”
Also, in September, Boeing chief executive Kelly Ortberg said Boeing will not likely launch a development programme until the Federal Aviation Administration streamlines its certification processes. Boeing is working through a 777-9 certification effort long delayed due partly to tighter FAA oversight.
Asked last month about efforts to ease certification challenges, FAA administrator Bryan Bedford said, “Everybody’s looking for streamlining on certification… We have analog certification and we need to go to digital certification”.
“We are working on it,” Bedford added.
