Originally Posted by
Hedley
Congress has a short attention span too since they really only focus on the current or next election cycle. There is simply too much money on the table for them to stop the Max 7/10 certification over EICAS. They'll get their 30 second campaign sound bites on the news, but they're not going to shut down a program that will cost Boeing and their customers billions of dollars. They'll like the positive press for making Boeing get their act together, but they'll avoid all of the bad press from shutting down the program. That would cost Boeing and the airlines with orders billions of dollars, jobs would be cut, and airfares would rise due to increasing demand and reduced capacity. The last two versions of the max will eventually get certified, and airlines with firm orders will end up flying them.
They might compromise and let the 7 slide. I think the only big hold-up there is the nacelles?
BCA might simply drop the 10 as too risky an investment... if they keep dumping money in development, it drags out, and then they DON'T get the EICAS exemption that would be good money after bad. They can't know today if the political landscape will support an exemption extension at the exact moment they need it. It's clear that they will no way in h3ll add an EICAS to the 10 or any other 73, so no exemption is a show stopper.
Although both sides of the political aisle have motives to keep production lines moving, since it impacts both business and labor.