United Airlines Faces Dilemma with Unused Lie-Flat Seats for Delayed Boeing 737 Max 10

In August 2018, the then-president and now CEO of United Airlines Scott Kirby told a room of reporters at an aviation conference in Denver about the airline's big plans for the new Boeing 737 Max 10: lie-flat, premium seats and a host of profitable, transcontinental routes. The plane was supposed to start flying in 2020. Hundreds of those seats have been in storage because its certification — which was expected more than six years ago — is far behind schedule. Now, Boeing and many of its customers expect the company to win federal approval for the plane, the largest in the bestselling 737 Max family, soon, so United has to decide what to do with all those seats. "We got a bunch of lie-flat seats that we don't know what to do with," Kirby told CNBC during an interview earlier this month at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey. "They don't fit on other airplanes." United hasn't disclosed the layout it will use on the planes, or where it will fly them. The airline set its earlier plans for the Boeing 737 Max 10 before it even offered a premium economy section. The delays for both the newly approved Boeing 737 Max 7, the smallest model, and the yet-to-be-certified Max 10 came after the manufacturer had to redesign an anti-icing system. Boeing was also dealing with increased scrutiny after years of safety and manufacturing crises. Boeing won approval for the 737 Max 7 earlier this month, with big customer Southwest Airlines expecting to fly them sometime in the first half of 2027. United pivoted because of the Boeing delays and recently outfitted a subfleet of its Airbus A321neo narrow-body aircraft with 20 of the newly designed Polaris suites, premium economy options and other new seats as part of the industry's race to add high-yielding seating on its planes. It's dubbed the subfleet the "Coastliner" for transcontinental routes. But the dimensions and requirements aren't the same on both planes, leaving United with a decision on what its interiors will look like. It expects to get the first Boeing Max 10s in summer 2027. It has 167 of the aircraft on order, according to its most recent quarterly filing.