The US Federal Aviation Administration will allow Boeing to resume self-certification of all 737 Max and 787 aircraft starting next week, the agency announced on Friday. The decision, which follows months of joint inspections, means the manufacturer can again issue airworthiness certificates for its own planes—a practice suspended after the 2019 Max crashes and later extended to the 787 in 2022 over production quality concerns. FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford stated that government inspectors will now shift their focus to identifying defects earlier in the manufacturing process, while continuing oversight of Boeing’s factories.

In Moscow, the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) has proposed ending state regulation of railway ticket refund fees and allowing carriers to set their own charges, capped at 10 percent of the ticket price. The draft order, open for public consultation until 1 August, responds to a more than threefold increase in returns since pandemic-era rules reduced the fee to a minimum. According to FAS data, over 25 million tickets were returned in 2025, but only 5.9 million seats were resold and roughly 9 million remained unsold. The service argues that speculative returns by intermediaries create artificial shortages, particularly during peak travel periods, and that the measure will improve ticket availability for passengers.

Separately, the FAA is asking Congress for an additional $10 billion to overhaul the country’s ageing air traffic control infrastructure. Administrator Bedford described a system that is “behind 20 years” and said the agency is compressing a 15-year modernisation plan into three years, already replacing 57 percent of copper-based telecom infrastructure. Major US aviation groups have endorsed the funding request. The FAA also intends to launch a new AI-assisted flight scheduling system in September and to move all 313 facilities to cloud-based operations, with a shift from analogue to digital communications expected in late 2027.

Boeing’s latest commercial market outlook projects a global fleet of around 50,000 aircraft by 2045, up from nearly 28,000 in 2025, with more than 90 percent being new-generation models that are up to 30 percent more efficient in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The company anticipates annual air traffic growth of 4 percent over the next two decades, driven by Europe, the Middle East and Asia, though it notes that the recent conflict in the Middle East has caused a short-term disruption, with airlines passing higher fuel and operational costs on to passengers.

The Russian refund proposal now enters a public discussion phase, while the FAA’s funding request will be considered by lawmakers as part of broader aviation reform legislation. Boeing’s restored self-certification authority takes effect immediately, with the company stating it will continue to work under FAA oversight to meet all airworthiness requirements.