Boeing Reportedly Restarts 737 MAX Production

(RTTNews) - Aerospace major Boeing Co. has restarted production of its best-selling 737 MAX jetliner last week, Reuters reported citing sources familiar with the matter. Amid the significantly growing global demand for air travel, the company has to fulfil about 4,200 orders from airlines for the jet.

This comes a month after a seven-week strike by 33,000 factory workers ended following a majority of them voting to approve a new contract.

The production of the popular 737 MAX, which was hit hard due to the strike as well as recent safety issues, restarted last Friday, the report noted. The strike had halted mainly the production of Boeing's 737 MAX jets, as well as 767 and 777 widebody planes.

Meanwhile, Mike Whitaker, the head of the Federal Aviation Administration, last week had said that Boeing plans to resume 737 MAX production later in December.

Following the significant growth in demand for the most popular airplane, Boeing was planning to increase 737 MAX production to a targeted 56 airplanes a month. Meanwhile, the production was halted many times over these years amid various challenges, including two fatal crashes, the COVID-19 pandemic, supply chain problems, and production safety concerns. These issues had led to increased regulatory scrutiny, and the nearly two-month long strike added to the woes.

Jefferies analysts expect Boeing to produce an average of 29 737 MAX planes per month in 2025.

Boeing in mid November planned to lay off over 2,500 workers across its various U.S. operations, as part of its broader initiative to cut 17,000 jobs, or 10% of its global workforce.

Due to the ongoing safety-related issues and production delays caused by the strike, Boeing in October had reported a wider net loss in its third quarter, also due to charges in its commercial airplanes and defense segments. Total company backlog at quarter-end was $511 billion, including over 5,400 commercial airplanes.

Boeing's latest issues started with a January 5 incident, when a mid-cabin door plug on Alaska Airlines' Boeing 737-9 MAX airplane blew out in the middle of the flight, following which FAA grounded around 171 737 MAX 9 airplanes for inspections for several weeks.

In early March, the FAA had announced that its production audit of Boeing and Spirit AeroSystems identified multiple quality control lapses, and halted production expansion of the Boeing 737 MAX.

Earlier, in March 2019, 737 MAX, which was then the world's biggest-selling aircraft, was grounded worldwide following two crashes within just six months, which together claimed 346 lives.