Everett (United States) (AFP) – Boeing marked another step in a marathon comeback Friday when it celebrated expanded production of the 737 MAX, now an aircraft in heavy demand after earlier disasters tarnished the company’s reputation. At a rousing ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by hundreds of Boeing employees, commercial airlines chief Stephanie Pope and Washington state elected officials characterized the new $1 billion “North Line” MAX production line investment in Everett, Washington as the appropriate next step for an industrial site that has been building Boeing’s most storied aircraft for decades.
“This investment is a vote of confidence in our workforce, in American manufacturing, and the future of aerospace in the city of Everett,” said Everett Mayor Cassie Franklin. “This factory has repeatedly shown the world what is possible.” Boeing has big plans for the North Line, envisioning a production cadence comparable to that in Renton, 35 miles to the south, which until this week was the exclusive home of MAX assembly. But in keeping with Boeing’s caution after two deadly MAX crashes, executives plan a gradual ramp-up in Everett for a jet that once defined the company’s problems but is now at the center of its comeback.
“It’s a rolling start,” Jennifer Boland-Masterson, senior director for Boeing’s North Line production, said earlier this week on a media tour of the new production line. “We’re going to start off slower and then increase our rates,” Boland-Masterson said, describing the work ahead on the site’s first 737 MAX 10 fuselage that was just beginning to be assembled. The Everett building was used to assemble the Boeing 787 Dreamliner before Boeing shifted the operation to South Carolina.
While triumphant music played at Friday’s ceremony, the massive Convention Center-scaled space was largely empty earlier in the week, save for dormant cranes, a scattering of workers, and the occasional hum of drilling. The Everett operation is based closely on the MAX assembly lines in Renton. Operations are spread out over 10 “flow days,” including days when wings are added and the structure is outfitted with engines, seats, and other components. Boland-Masterson declined to offer a timetable for when the first North Line MAX aircraft would complete the process. Boeing is training 1,000 North Line staff, about half from Renton and the rest new recruits.
The operation – located in Everett because of the lack of available land in Renton – will be a central element in Boeing’s goal to lift MAX output from the current 47 per month to 63 and possibly higher, in a ramp-up closely overseen by federal aviation regulators.
Regulatory hurdles remain. The MAX has been a key element in a long period of Boeing stumbles. Those began with a pair of deadly crashes in 2018 and 2019 that together claimed 346 lives and prompted congressional hearings in which Boeing was slammed for degrading safety in the chase for profits, and for misleading Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulators during certification. The company replaced its leadership in December 2019, but doubts about the MAX re-emerged in January 2024. Then, a window panel on an Alaska Airlines jet blew out midflight before an emergency landing that miraculously resulted in no fatalities. The incident plunged Boeing back into crisis, prompting another leadership shakeup.
Since then, CEO Kelly Ortberg has implemented process and quality control improvements and worked to restore credibility with airline customers and FAA regulators, who greenlighted MAX production increases from 38 to 42 and then from 42 to 47. Ortberg told a Wall Street conference in late May that it would take “a few months of stabilization” at the 47 level in terms of readying the supply chain while monitoring key performance indications. After a “low-rate initial production” at Everett, the “North Line will help enable the 737 MAX program to reach 52 airplanes a month,” according to a Boeing handout. But Boeing has key FAA hurdles to clear, including the certification of the 737 MAX 10. In addition, the agency must sign off on the company’s production plans for Everett before commercial aircraft can be delivered.
© 2024 AFP
