US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has called for shortening the time needed to certify new aircraft, warning that approval timelines approaching a decade discourage investment and leave American manufacturers at a competitive disadvantage against China.

Speaking in Washington on September 30, 2026, Duffy said the current certification process was holding back new designs from major aircraft manufacturers. Investors, he argued, would be reluctant to finance programs that could take ten years to clear approval.

"We need to make sure we have safe aviation, but can we move faster?" he said, according to Reuters.

The Federal Aviation Administration proposed changes in June 2026 aimed at reducing the time and cost of certifying transport-category aircraft and their propulsion systems. The proposal would write commonly used exemptions, special conditions and equivalent-level-of-safety findings directly into the regulations. That, according to Duffy, would reduce the need for manufacturers and the FAA to work through separate approvals for design features the agency has already reviewed repeatedly.

Alignment with EASA

The FAA said the changes would maintain existing safety standards while bringing US requirements closer to those of the European Union Aviation Safety Agency. Closer alignment would make it easier for each regulator to approve the other's products — a consequential point for manufacturers that must currently certify on both sides of the Atlantic to serve major markets.

The proposal covers a specific set of technical areas: cabin interiors, emergency exits and signs, fuel tank flammability assessments, windshield visibility and decompression standards. It also addresses protections against unsafe use of power levers or thrust reversers.

The agency said the rulemaking incorporates recommendations from its Aviation Rulemaking Advisory Committee and the National Transportation Safety Board, along with a requirement in the 2024 FAA Reauthorization Act.

737 MAX 10 in the background

Duffy's call for faster approvals comes as Boeing faces another delay in certifying its 737 MAX 10. On September 28, two days before his remarks, the FAA said it would hold off approving the aircraft until a recently disclosed software issue was resolved.

The agency said the software could increase pilot workload during a go-around. Duffy said on September 30 that he did not currently see a safety concern arising from the issue.

The MAX 10 has become the clearest test case of the friction Duffy described. Each month of delay in the variant's entry into service defers revenue for Boeing and leaves carriers that ordered the largest MAX variant waiting on capacity they planned around — consequences that scale with the aircraft's position in the backlog.

For the industry, the stakes in the proposed rulemaking are straightforward. Folding recurring exemptions and special conditions into the regulatory baseline would cut duplicated administrative work for both OEM certification teams and FAA staff, shortening the path from design freeze to type certificate. Whether that translates into meaningfully faster approvals depends on how the FAA implements the changes once the rulemaking process concludes — and on whether programs like the MAX 10, which remain pending for technical rather than procedural reasons, move on their own track.