Boeing Plans To Resume 737 Max Production Months Before FAA Certification

Boeing is pushing to resume production of the troubled 737 Max planes months before receiving regulatory consent for the plane to return to the skies.

Boeing said Tuesday that it did not expect the FAA to allow the plane to return to service before June-July. The company’s shares tumbled more than 3% following the announcement, a report on the CNBC website said.

The U.S. planemaker suspended production of the 737 Max last month. Aviation regulators around the world including the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) grounded the plane in March last year after a flawed software was blamed for two crashes that claimed 346 lives within a span of six months -- in October 2018 and March last year.

In a conference call with reporters, Boeing’s new CEO David Calhoun said Wednesday that he wanted the company to resume the plane’s production months before the expected certification. Calhoun’s comments indicated that the company expected the production pause to be lifted in a couple of months. “We got to get that line started up again,” he told reporters. “And the supply chain will be reinvigorated even before that.”

The announcement was heard with relief across Boeing’s vast network of suppliers reeling from the production pause.

The production shutdown has led to layoffs at Boeing main supplier Spirit Aerosystems, which makes fuselages for the 737 Max. The Wichita, Kansas-based company announced Jan. 10 its intention to cut an initial 2,800 jobs because of the Max grounding.

Boeing itself has reassigned thousands of workers from the 737 Max line to other programs. However, Calhoun said Boeing was not planning to lay off any of its employees because of the delay in resuming production. Calhoun, a decadelong Boeing board member, took the top job last week amid hopes he could steady the company hit by the 737 Max crisis.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin had estimated that the plane’s grounding could shave half a percentage point off U.S. economic growth. A continued shutdown is expected to impact the broader economy further.

The company’s culture recently came in for harsh scrutiny after internal emails showed some employees boasted about bullying regulators into changing pilot training norms to suit the company. Some Boeing employees had expressed safety concerns about the plane. Calhoun said he intended to improve the company’s culture and lift employee morale.