Boeing chief Dave Calhoun has spoken of his confidence that the US airframer will secure an extension to the Congressional year-end deadline to get the MAX 7 and MAX 10 certified.

Calhoun told US news service CNBC ‘we will get an extension and that they will be certified as safe airplanes’.

The US aviation regulator, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has to to certify the MAX 7 and MAX 10 under existing rules by a key date in December. If that deadline is missed all those aircraft must be equipped with modern cockpit alerting systems and be certified by the FAA, which would mean significant delays for the deployment of the new aircraft variants – unless Congress grants a waiver to extend the deadline.

Boeing and others have argued that the overhaul would be costly and counterproductive, leaving the new aircraft with a different system from other 737s.

Meanwhile, Boeing reported a significant third quarter loss of $3.3 billion after it wrote off $2.8 billion on its defence programmes. Soon after the Boeing financial update, Alaska Airlines did however announce that it was  exercising options to purchase 52 Boeing 737 MAX aircraft, the biggest Boeing order in its 90-year history. These additional MAXs, pegged for delivery between 2024 and 2027, will expand the airline’s confirmed 737 MAX fleet from 94 to 146.