Boeing chief executive Kelly Ortberg will join RTX's Christopher Calio and GE Aerospace's Larry Culp on October 15, 2026, in Savannah, Georgia, to discuss certification reform with US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. Bloomberg first reported the meeting. The agenda covers how approval of aircraft, parts and components could be streamlined.

The stakes are straightforward. Over the past two years, Duffy and the Federal Aviation Administration have pressed publicly for modernization of the certification process. Now the industry's most senior executives will field questions on what can be done to make that process more efficient.

The Department of Transportation has framed the issue as both a safety and a competitiveness question. In a statement to Bloomberg, the DoT noted that Duffy and FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford have previously described certification reform as an "opportunity to both enhance safety for the flying public and maintain America's global aerospace competitiveness."

The department's framing sharpens from there. "If we can't modernize the process, safety innovation will lag and adversaries like China will step in to fill the void," a DoT spokesperson said. That is a geopolitical argument dressed as a regulatory one. Whether the assembled chiefs accept the premise is another matter.

Why Boeing has the most to lose

Few companies have felt certification friction more acutely than Boeing. Two fatal 737 MAX 8 crashes between 2018 and 2019, followed by a door plug incident on an Alaska Airlines flight in 2025, severely hampered the planemaker's production rates.

The paperwork tells its own story. On August 3, 2026, Boeing announced that the 737 MAX 7 had secured type certification from the FAA. Boeing and Southwest Airlines had launched the jet 13 years earlier. Thirteen years from launch to certificate is not a development schedule; it is a career.

The MAX 10 remains in limbo. Boeing expected certification by the end of September 2026 after years of delays, but a software problem last month temporarily paused the process. Each month of delay carries direct consequences for airlines waiting on the type and for Boeing's delivery targets.

Where else the backlog bites

Cabin seating has become another certification bottleneck. Airlines increasingly adopt elaborate premium designs, and each interior configuration now demands its own regulatory approval cycle. Premium cabins, once a marketing decision, are now a certification workload.

The Savannah meeting will not produce a new rule. What it can produce is a shared position on where the process wastes time without adding safety value. For Boeing, whose smallest MAX variant took 13 years to certify, that question is not theoretical.

Whether reform talk converts into shorter certification timelines will show first in the MAX 10's file, which remains open as of October 2026.