Boeing says its 737-10 development team completed the aircraft’s final planned certification flight test on July 28, 2026, marking the end of the flight test portion of the certification effort and shifting the programme into “closeout” work and regulatory submissions.
What Boeing says the flight-test campaign achieved
In the feature story, Boeing describes a flight-test programme totalling 976 flights and more than 2,060 flight hours, plus about 1,040 ground test hours.
Boeing says the test scope “validated the full spectrum” of certification requirements, including main landing gear brakes on wet runways and maximum-energy stops for the 737 Engine Anti-Ice (EAI) solution.
Chris Payne, Boeing’s vice president and general manager of 737 Development Programs, framed the milestone as a team achievement and said the focus now is to keep moving the programme forward.
What “final planned certification flight” actually means
Finishing the final planned certification flight does not mean the aircraft is already certified. It means Boeing believes it has completed the planned flight-test data collection needed for certification and now needs to finish the remaining internal and regulatory steps.
Boeing says the programme is now shifting to closing remaining development assurance reviews (DARs) and system safety assessments (SSAs) and submitting final deliverables to the FAA for regulatory review.
Boeing separately reiterated in its Q2 2026 results (July 28, 2026) that certification flight testing has been completed for both the 737-7 and 737-10 and that it still anticipates certification in 2026 with first deliveries in 2027.
Boeing notes the final certification flight itself was an interiors evaluation focused on confirming the audibility of the lavatory smoke detector and the cabin speaker system to ensure crews can detect and respond to onboard alerts. Boeing says the aircraft departed from and returned to King County International Airport (BFI).
The test fleet
Boeing test pilot Dan Mangel said he flew the first flight of that specific test aeroplane four years earlier and called the final certification test flight “a bit of an emotional day”.
Boeing says three flight-test aeroplanes supported the 737-10 certification campaign, 1G001, 1G002 and 1G003, and the team often flew them in parallel to keep the schedule moving.
The company also notes that, over time, each of these test aircraft will go through refurbishment to convert from a flight-test configuration into a customer-ready aeroplane, including removal of test instrumentation, cabin installation, paint, and interior finishing ahead of delivery.
Boeing closes the feature with a simple roadmap: the 737-10 and 737-7 programmes “remain on the path” toward certification in 2026 and customer deliveries in 2027.
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