Boeing To Resume 737 MAX Production In May

Ted Perton·
737737 MAXAviationAviation NewsBoeing

Boeing CEO David Calhoun has revealed that the manufacturer intends to resume production for the 737 MAX.

In a recent interview with Fox Business News, Mr. Calhoun expressed confidence that production in Seattle will resume this month.

Almost all 737 MAX aircraft have been grounded since March 2019, following two fatal accidents involving the MAX-8 variant in Indonesia and Ethiopia.

Boeing suspended 737 MAX production in January, due to a backlog of over 450 undelivered aircraft, sitting idle in storage, according to Business Insider.

a group of airplanes on a runway
Picture: Flickr/Alan Wilson

Between April 2019 and January 2020 Boeing was producing 737 MAX aircraft, at a rate of 42 per month.

Once production resumes Boeing will gradually increase the rate of production, to 31 per month by 2021.

737 MAX order cancellations mounted during Q1 of 2020, with 191 aircraft orders being cancelled between January and March.

Boeing reported losses of $641 million in Q1. The manufacturer has detailed plans to lay-off 15% of their commercial aviation workforce.

Article Sources: Business Insider and Reuters. Feature Image: Flickr/Liam Allport

Ted Perton
Aviation Editor

Ted is an Australia-based contributing editor at SamChui.com, having joined as a staff writer in 2020. With a background in aviation policy and law, Ted has worked on numerous major projects interfacing with aviation and transport systems. His self-described favourite pastime is collecting frequent flyer points, status credits and lounge-hopping. Ted is based between Melbourne and Canberra, Australia.

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9 Responses

  1. In over two years they have not fixed the problem so it is not minor It is a major design flaw trying to patch up a 1958 designed fuselage to function with endless add ons to adapt it to 21st century engines which was all done purely on the basis os saving money NOT engineering excellence Your continued arrogance of under estimating the power of public opinion will see the end of Boeing.

    Reply

  2. Amen, to the above. I’ll only be using airlines that will not be using this airplane. Might have been different if Boeing and the FAA had been HONEST at the outset but now I have no trust.

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    1. See my post below. You are quite right. Only a mental patient or a regular CNN viewer (no difference) would fly on the Max Death Tube.

  3. Hey, Dave, we do not thank you for your Boeing-biased nonsense story. The Max will probably never RTS and certainly not this summer. It has old old old flight computers and weak software. Check out what happens NOW if there is a vane disagree and tell us honestly whether or not you would take your family on this pile of junk. A little research will inform you the Max is inherently unstable and reducing the MCAS input to 5 seconds will still be very dangerous if its an erroneous intervention. But as an aviation professional, you must know all this. Yet here you are helping the corporate murderer Calhoun pitch his lies to keep the share price from, uh, you know, CRASHING. The trouble with allowing such a lie to prevail via the media is that it could influence the FAA to be lax in its decision to keep the Max grounded “until we are satisfied that it is safe”. Like you, they know full well that the Max IS NOT SAFE. The media, full of Boeing ass lickers, failed to report accurately as Boeing engineers and managers and airline pilots complained about the dangers of the Max, and the resulting 2 crashes were to that extent the result of the media’s withholding information from the public. And you are doing it again. LIck. Lick. Lick. If the Max is RTS, it will crash, and you will have done your part in bringing that about. Where is the balanced story which includes views contrary to the corporate murderer David Calhoun? Its not as if there are no critics, so why not quote them? DON’T TAKE YOUR FAMILY ON THE MAX, IT WILL CRASH!

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  4. The joke is gonna be if EASA or if certain EU countries will ban the jet flying over their airspace. Then they’ll be useful to airlines as winter coat in the summer. For the safety of ppl flying in these things and for ppl on the ground I hope it never flies in EU. If the crashes would have happened over heavily populated neighbourhoods it would have been catastrophic. When Ryanair starts flying these they’ll be flying over my house and neighbourhoods around here… time to move house I think.

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  6. You have got to be joking… Boeing needs to clean up the big mess they already have before they start new ones.. The AF Tanker is a complete failure also ..

    Reply

  7. How many MAX’s are on the books? Anyone know? I’ve read where some orders have been cnx’d or halved, or pushed back. Are there still thousands on order…?

    Reply

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