Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy on Wednesday called for a quicker certification process for new aircraft from Boeing and other manufacturers with U.S. production to more easily keep up with mounting competition from China.
“Where’s the new innovation in aviation from the big producers? It doesn’t happen because it’s so hard to certify,” Duffy said during a Y Combinator event for startups. “We need to make sure we have safe aviation, but can we move faster?”
The move to change federal aviation standards could spur increased innovation from some of the major manufacturers operating in the U.S. market, including Boeing, Airbus, Embraer and Bombardier.
“If we can’t move at a different pace in certification, we’re going to lose. China is going to beat us,” Duffy told reporters after the event, which was hosted in D.C. He also called for “more competition, more players,” in the industry.
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The United States ranks first among the world’s aerospace leaders by export valuation, according to 2024 calculations from Tendata, a global trade intelligence platform. France and Germany rank second and third, respectively. China trails behind the U.S. as a competitor — but the country’s push in the defense sector has spurred progress for its aviation industry, the online aviation publication Simple Flying reported in February.
In June, the Federal Aviation Administration “issued a proposed rule to make the certification of transport-category airplanes and their propulsion systems faster, simpler, and less expensive while maintaining the highest safety standards,” the agency said in a statement.
Boeing referred The Washington Sun to the FAA’s June statement on the new certification standards. Representatives for Airbus, Embraer and Bombardier did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Certifying new aircraft can take between five to nine years, according to the FAA. Amended type certificates, which federal regulators award to allow a manufacturer to change aircraft that have already been certified, can take three to five years.
The proposed rule would also streamline certification processes by aligning the U.S.’s approach to certification “more closely with the European Union Aviation Safety Agency’s standards,” the FAA said in its statement.
Boeing, which is headquartered in Virginia, has struggled to receive relatively quick certifications for some of its aircraft models in recent years, with the 777X model running seven years behind schedule.
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