Alaska Unveiled Lie-Flat Suites for the Boeing 737 MAX 10. The Day Before, the FAA Put the Jet’s Certification on Hold.

Alaska is planning its best seat around a plane that still has no type certificate. United tried the same thing eight years ago, and it is still storing the seats.

On September 29, 2026, Alaska Air Group said it will fit 12 lie-flat Aurora Suites to at least 25 of its Boeing 737-10s for transcontinental first class, starting in 2028. It is the first time Alaska will put a bed on a 737.

One day earlier, FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said the agency would delay certifying the Boeing 737 MAX 10 over a software problem. “We will be delaying the 10 … until we’re satisfied that we don’t have an issue here,” he told reporters in Washington.

Boeing launched the jet in 2017. It has not delivered one yet.

Why Alaska Is Putting Its Best Seat on a Jet It Doesn’t Have Yet

The 737-10 is the backbone of Alaska’s future fleet. In January 2026 the airline ordered 105 of them, the largest order in its history, and took rights to 35 more.

Alaska has said it plans to fly the MAX 10 to markets such as New York and Boston. Today it sells no bed on any 737, and on those cross-country routes its rivals do.

Those rivals have sold beds on single-aisle jets for years. By 2018, American and JetBlue already flew lie-flat seats coast to coast on narrowbody Airbus jets. In 2026, United added its A321neo “Coastliner”, which carries 20 Polaris suites in a 161-seat cabin.

Alaska’s answer is a 12-suite cabin with direct aisle access and a 19-inch 4K screen at every seat. Behind it sit 12 Premium Reserve seats, a new premium economy tier with 38 inches of pitch.

The airline is also trying to build a global brand. It already flies to London and Rome, adds Athens and Paris in spring 2027, and Aurora Suites double as its international business class, the product that gets compared with the world’s best business class cabins.

Until this week the timing looked safe. On September 25, Alaska’s chief operating officer Jason Berry told Reuters he expected the FAA to certify the MAX 10 by the end of September. He planned for a first delivery in spring 2027 and passenger service between April and mid-May.

Nine Years, Three Missed Dates and One Software Bug

The MAX 10 is the largest member of the 737 MAX family, at 143 ft 8 in (43.80 m) long, with room for up to 230 passengers in one class. It is also the last MAX still waiting for its certificate.

The hold is about the flight management computer. After a missed approach, if the crew changes the flight plan, the automatic vertical navigation mode can drop to a simpler pitch mode. The crew then has to take extra steps to turn it back on.

The fault came from a GE Aerospace software update. Bedford said Boeing had fixed an earlier bug in the system but “unexpectedly … introduced a new bug.”

Neither Boeing nor the FAA has said the jet is unsafe. “The pilots remain in control of the airliner, train for these scenarios,” Bedford said. “The issue that we’re looking at right now is the workload component.” Boeing shares still fell nearly 7% that day.

The bug surfaced as the paperwork was ending. In July, Boeing reported that flight testing on the MAX 10 was complete, and in September CEO Kelly Ortberg told investors approval was coming “very soon.”

United Already Knows What a MAX 10 Delay Does to a Premium Cabin

In August 2018, Scott Kirby, then United’s president, told reporters in Denver that the airline was developing lie-flat seats for its new 737 MAX 10s. United had ordered 100 and expected to fly them from 2020, replacing some of its old Boeing 757s.

CNBC noted at the time that the plan would make United the first US airline with that kind of seat on a 737. The airline aimed the beds almost entirely at coast-to-coast demand.

Eight years later, United has not received a single MAX 10. “We got a bunch of lie-flat seats that we don’t know what to do with,” Kirby, now CEO, told CNBC in August 2026. “They don’t fit on other airplanes.”

Hundreds of those seats are in storage. United got its transcontinental beds anyway, by buying Airbus: the Coastliner came about partly because the MAX 10 was delayed.

United still has 167 MAX 10s on order and has not said what cabin they will carry. Its plan was built before the airline even sold premium economy.

The lesson for Alaska is not that the MAX 10 will never arrive. It is that the certification date has been the least reliable number in every MAX 10 plan so far.

What Happens Next for the MAX 10 and Aurora Suites

The FAA has given no new date. Bedford said the agency has not concluded whether the software problem is a safety-of-flight issue.

Alaska has some room. Its first MAX 10s were planned for spring 2027, and the Aurora 737s are not due until 2028. Only some of the fleet gets the suites: at least 25 of the 105 jets on order.

The smaller MAX 7, held up by the same anti-ice redesign, was certified on August 3, 2026. The MAX 10 now has the same finish line to reach, with one new item on the list.

Premium Reserve goes on sale next summer. The Aurora Suites on the 787 fleet do not depend on Boeing’s narrowbody at all.

But the part of the plan built for cross-country flying depends on one thing: a certificate once expected in 2020, then 2023, then this month. Alaska has built the seat. The plane it goes on is still waiting for the FAA.