PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) -The head of the Federal Aviation Administration said Tuesday the agency plans to conduct tabletop exercises with Boeing before it will consider lifting the 38-plane per month cap on 737 MAX production.

"They still haven't asked us to increase the rate, and we haven't agreed to do anything," FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford told Reuters on the sidelines of an event at the Philadelphia airport on Tuesday. "We agreed that it would make sense to start to develop the process by which we would entertain a rate increase conversation."

Bedford added he hopes to complete those exercises by the end of September.