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Stephanie Pope, Boeing Commercial Airplanes President and CEO.
RIO DE JANEIRO—The Boeing 777-9, the first variant in the 777X program, has achieved an important milestone in its flight and ground testing process, Boeing Commercial Airplanes (BCA) President and CEO Stephanie Pope has revealed.
The Type Inspection Authorization (TIA) Phase 4B approval represents a demanding regulatory phase in which FAA personnel directly participate in testing and validate the aircraft’s safety, checklists, and non-normal operations. Pope indicated this puts Boeing on track to get the 777-9 certified this year, a timeline that has been in question.
Speaking on June 6 with ATW from Rio de Janeiro, where Pope was attending the IATA AGM, she revealed that the 777-9 TIA Phase 4B approval had been given just a day or two earlier.
“There are five phases of TIA. We had gotten TIA 4A, which was a smaller piece,” Pope said. “4B is a significantly larger piece, one of the biggest pieces remaining for us to get approval to complete flight tests, [and] is focusing on systems like avionics ... So, a big, big milestone for us as we focus on completing that flight test and getting that airplane certified later this year.”
Just a week earlier, FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford told an audience at the CAPA Americas Airline Leader Summit in Charleston, South Carolina, that 777X certification would be “hopefully early next year,” following certifications of the 737 MAX-7 and MAX-10 by end of this year.
If the 777-9 is also certificated by the end of 2026, as Pope clearly believes is doable with the TIA Phase 4B approval in hand, it would clear the way to begin deliveries early in 2027, which many customers are hoping for after multiple program delays.
Pope, who is also Boeing executive VP, expressed confidence on June 6. “This authorization unlocks the largest remaining portion of our flight test with the FAA that we can now go execute. It enables further avionics and stability and control testing, as well as human factors flight testing,” she said.
“Earning each of these authorizations requires significant coordination from our team to complete all of our submittals to the regulator and respond swiftly and thoroughly to their questions,” Pope said. “I appreciate the team’s dedication and focus as they drive to complete our testing and certification deliverables.”
However, another key element of the final phase of 777-9 tests is to gain extended range twin engine operations (ETOPS) approval, which is TIA Phase 5. Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg, speaking on May 27 at the Bernstein annual Strategic Decisions Conference in New York, said the company expected to be done with the flight test program by year end, with the exception of ETOPS, and acknowledged that most customers would want ETOPS testing done ahead of delivery.
“But we’re building the airplanes and getting ready to start the deliveries next year,” Kelly said.
The early June gain of the TIA Phase 4B approval, however, gives Boeing more room to proceed through the certification process in the second half of the year and Pope sounded determined on June 6, saying certification of the MAX-7, MAX-10 and 777-9 were her top priorities for the rest of this year.
“I feel like the team’s done even better than I thought they could do around their plans. That’s the last big, I would say, confidence booster and this recovery that we’re on for our customers and for our employees and for the world,” she said.
The full interview with BCA President and CEO Stephanie Pope will appear in the July-August issue of ATW magazine.
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