Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration held a type certification board meeting on Friday morning — the final procedural step before regulatory approval of the 737 Max 10, according to three people familiar with the milestone.

The meeting, which The Air Current reports was successful, moves the longest-running outstanding variant of the 737 Max family to the brink of its type certificate. For Boeing, that closes a certification campaign that has stretched years beyond the airframer's original timeline and been shadowed by the two accidents that grounded the broader Max fleet and by the subsequent tightening of FAA oversight.

What happens after the board meeting?

The TCBM is not the certificate itself. It is the last formal review at which Boeing and the regulator reconcile the program's compliance record. Following its completion, Boeing is expected to deliver a project statement of completion, or PSOC, to the FAA.

The PSOC is Boeing's formal assertion that every certification requirement has been satisfied. Once the FAA accepts it, the agency's administrators add the ceremonial signatures that formally issue the type certificate. Those signatures are expected in short order, according to the people familiar with the process.

In practical terms, the sequence looks like this:

• TCBM held Friday morning; reported successful
• Boeing submits the project statement of completion to the FAA
• FAA signatures formalize the 737-10 type certificate
• Certification clears the path to first deliveries

Why the Max 10 matters to Boeing's backlog

The 737-10 is the largest variant of the re-engined 737 family, and it carries real weight in Boeing's single-aisle order book. Airlines have been waiting on the type as the Airbus A321neo's principal challenger in the heart of the narrowbody market — the segment where Boeing has ceded the most ground during the Max program's years of crisis.

Certification converts that waiting backlog into deliverable aircraft. Until the FAA signs, Boeing cannot hand over a single 737-10, no matter how many airframes sit complete around its Seattle-area facilities. Every month of delay has held revenue hostage and pushed airline network planning further out.

For carriers, the certificate unlocks fleet decisions they have had to defer: the 737-10 slots into the 190-to-230-seat band where replacement demand and growth demand now concentrate. Once deliveries begin, Boeing gains a second certified new-generation narrowbody alongside the 737-9, giving sales teams a fuller card against the A321neo and the smaller A320neo family.

A milestone years in the making

Friday's board meeting caps a certification effort that began before the Max grounding reshaped the relationship between Boeing and its regulator. The FAA's post-crash reforms — including new delegation oversight and a slower, more document-heavy compliance process — extended timelines across Boeing's development programs, and the Max 10 sat squarely in that new regime.

That the TCBM concluded successfully signals the regulator's technical teams found no outstanding items requiring further work — the cleanest possible exit from a review of this scale.

The remaining steps are administrative rather than technical. Barring an unexpected holdup in the PSOC exchange, the ceremonial signatures expected next will make the 737-10 a certified airplane, and Boeing can finally begin converting its largest-variant backlog into deliveries.