Boeing has further delayed its 737 Max 10 programme by two years, with deliveries of the largest variant of its re-engined narrowbody now scheduled to begin in 2023. The company also now expects to deliver the first 737 Max 7 – the smallest of the Max family – in 2021; that milestone was previously anticipated in 2020. The Chicago-headquartered airframer disclosed the tweaked timelines in its latest annual report, made public on 1 February. Several days earlier, during Boeing’s 27 January earnings call, the company said it had pushed back the first 777-9 delivery from 2021 to 2023. “We now anticipate that the first 737 Max 10 and 777X delivery will occur in 2023,” Boeing’s securities filing says. “This schedule reflects a number of factors, including an updated assessment of global certification requirements informed by continued discussions with regulators and resulting in a management decision to make modifications to the aircraft’s design.” The company has disclosed it is modifying the 777-9 due to certification requirements but has not mentioned Max 10 design changes. However, a recent document from the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) says the Max 10 will receive an angle-of-attack (AoA) sensor “integrity enhancement” – essentially a means of reducing the risk from a failure of one of the two AoA sensors. Boeing did not immediately respond to requests for more information. Boeing has been relatively quiet about the Max 7 and 10 development schedules since the grounding of the Max 8 and 9 in March 2019. US regulators cleared those jets to fly in November 2020, with EASA following suit last month. Previous annual reports placed 737 Max 10 deliveries as beginning in 2020. That deadline quietly slipped amid the Max and Covid-19 crisis of 2020. The company rolled out the first Max 10 in November 2019. The jet’s differences from its smaller siblings include longer landing gear, which ensures appropriate clearance between the rear fuselage and the ground during take-off rotation. The main gear has a “semi-levered” design, which saved Boeing from making extensive changes to the Max’s wheel wells. During rotation, the gear extends 241mm (9.5in). Once airborne, a steel compressing mechanism called a “shrink link” pulls the inner cylinder as the gear retracts. The Max 10 is to carry up to 230 passengers and have 3,300nm (6,110km) range, according to Boeing’s figures. By comparison, Airbus’s A321neo can carry up to 244 passengers and has range of 4,000nm (in the LR variant). Airbus is also developing the 4,700nm-range A321XLR.

United Airlines has put 14,000 employees on notice that their jobs are once again in danger when the second round of US government financial aid set aside for airline payroll support expires on 31 March. The Chicago-based carrier says in an internal memo on 29 January that it will be shedding the positions if the US government does not approve further coronavirus relief measures for the airline industry, and passenger demand does not improve markedly in the coming weeks. It has sent the so-called Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) letters to many of the same employees it had furloughed last year when the first round of aid ran out. The notice is a federally mandated requirement that requires employers to inform workers 60 days before a potential mass layoff event. “Despite ongoing efforts to distribute vaccines, customer demand has not changed much since we recalled… employees,” the company writes in a note to its workers. “Receiving a WARN notice does not automatically mean you will be on furlough status after April 1 – but it is a sign that we have a reasonable expectation that your job may be affected.” Meantime, Fort Worth-based American Airlines says it has not sent out any of these notices as of 29 January. At the end of September, the two airlines together involuntarily furloughed about 32,000 employees after a first round of $25 billion in government payroll support expired. Initially, United had warned 36,000 employees of impending job cuts, but was able to limit its involuntary furloughs to 13,000 at that time. American furloughed 19,000 employees at the end of September. The airlines hired the workers back when lawmakers approved a second package, worth another $15 billion, at the end of December. According to the conditions of the grants set aside in the second programme, airlines must keep the employees on staff until the end of March. Unlike its peers, the third major US carrier, Atlanta-headquartered Delta Air Lines, did not furlough any employees in September, and reached a deal with its pilots in November to protect them from job cuts as well. Industry observers say it is unlikely that the global coronavirus pandemic – and the ongoing depression in demand – will be over by the end of the first quarter. New travel restrictions, including a mandatory testing requirement for all inbound international arrivals and discussion that this could be extended to domestic flights as well, continue to make travel arduous and complicated, and potential customers are still wary about booking trips. Airline executives continue to hope that confidence and demand will return when nationwide vaccination ramps up in the coming months.

Lessors have been given a deadline to respond to new lease terms demanded by Norwegian ahead of the next hearing in the airline's restructuring process in Ireland. A lessor source says Norwegian has cancelled all of its existing operating leases and is seeking new terms to retain a number of its Boeing 737s. Lessors have to respond to these new terms ahead of the next hearing in its examinership process at Dublin's High Court on 4 February. In a company presentation on 25 January, the airline disclosed that it was seeking "significantly" reduced lease rates from pre-Covid levels, an extension of its by-the-hour agreements with lessors until March 2022, and an agreement there there would be no debt to equity conversion process for any non-paid rent beyond that generated via its by-the-hour agreement. A source says that in addition Norwegian is seeking a waiver on paying maintenance reserves, and comments, with reference to the airline's full name of Norwegian Air Shuttle: "It's like they want a Covid deal on all aircraft for NAS 2.0." In January, The Irish Times reported that Norwegian was seeking court approval to return 36 aircraft to their owners. A source says these would include all of the airline's leased 787s and some of the 737s. Negotiations over some of the aircraft returns are ongoing, the source adds. Norwegian has declined to comment, stating that these are confidential commercial discussions. The Oslo-based carrier last month disclosed its intention to exit its long-haul route network and focus on short-haul and domestic services. In its 25 January presentation, Norwegian said that the remaining financed aircraft in its fleet would be subject to interest and principal deferrals until March 2022. The airline is planning to raise capital of NKr4-5 billion ($465- 581 million) in the first quarter of 2021, out of which up to NKr1.5-2.5 billion will come from existing creditors through a "hybrid instrument". Utilising the examinership process, all large creditors are "assumed to be impaired or part of a scheme of arrangement". A dividend for unsecured claims, assumed by Norwegian at approximately NKr1.6 billion in total, is planned. The majority of this will be converted into equity, although a cash element will be considered. A reduction of vendor debt of approximately NKr1.9 billion will also "improve the equity", says the airline. It estimates that an expected writedown of leased and financed aircraft assets will cause a reduction in equity of approximately NKr10 billion prior to the exit from restructuring.