The United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has certified the Boeing 737 MAX 7, clearing the smallest variant of Boeing's single-aisle MAX family to enter commercial service after more than eight years of development, testing, and regulatory scrutiny. The announcement sent Boeing shares up around 8 percent, though the stock remains well below its pre-crisis highs.

The certification ends a prolonged ordeal that began with the crashes of two Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft — one in Indonesia in late 2018 and one in Ethiopia in early 2019 — killing all 346 people aboard both flights combined. Investigations revealed that a flawed anti-stall system called the Manoeuvring Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) had activated improperly, preventing pilots from regaining control. US prosecutors subsequently charged that Boeing had misled FAA regulators about MCAS, resulting in the system being omitted from pilot manuals and training materials. A further blow came in January 2024 when a door plug blew out of an Alaska Airlines MAX 9 mid-flight, prompting fresh regulatory restrictions on Boeing's production and sales. Congressional hearings at the time pointed to weak government oversight as a contributing factor in the original crashes, leading to legislation that required new sensors to be retrofitted across the entire MAX fleet of more than 2,300 aircraft.

To achieve certification, Boeing completed 441 flight tests totalling 686 hours, and the FAA described the process as involving