Boeing is restarting 737 Max production in the nick of time

Boeing (BA+4.48%) is looking to get things going again after its operations were brought essentially to a halt by a nearly two-monthslong machinist strike. Bloomberg reports that the company is restarting production of its key 737 Max models nearly a month after the strike’s end.

“Our team has worked methodically to restart factory operations in the Pacific Northwest,” Boeing said in a statement provided to Quartz. “We have now resumed 737 production in our Renton factory, with our Everett programs on plan to follow in the days ahead.”

Last week, Mike Whitaker, head of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), said Boeing hadn’t started making the planes again despite the strike’s end a month prior. The FAA is keeping tabs on Boeing’s production levels because the government agency imposed a slowdown earlier this year after a 737 Max 9’s door plug blew out mid-flight in January. Boeing is only allowed to produce a maximum of 38 of the planes per month.

“We used our Safety Management System to create program-specific plans to identify, evaluate, and mitigate potential risks at each stage of the restart,” Boeing told Quartz. “Over the last several weeks, we dedicated time toward training and certification, ensuring parts and tools are ready, and completing work on airplanes in inventory to prepare for the resumption of production at pre-work stoppage levels.”

A Boeing supplier gave a hint at how eager some industry players have been to see that resumption happen. Referencing the Kansas facilities of 737 Max fuselage supplier Spirit AeroSystems (SPR+1.40%), Stephen Oswald, the CEO of engine parts maker Ducommun (DCO+2.19%),  said it’s possible to literally see how far behind Boeing has gotten on its manufacturing.

“If you go to Wichita, you look at Spirit, and you look at all the fuselages that are stacked up, there used to be like 90 of them maybe,” Oswald said on a recent earnings call. “Now, it is like 150 fuselages.”

The 737 Max is far and away the biggest revenue driver of Boeing’s commercial airplanes division. Of the company’s 5,500-plane order backlog, customers are waiting for 4,200 737 Maxes. To give a sense of how badly Boeing needed to get to work on building them, the company reported its customer deliveries for November as 13. That’s down from a similarly slow 14 in October and a more respectable 33 in September; Boeing delivered 56 commercial airliners in November 2023.

Between the strike and the FAA slowdown, Boeing has been burning billions of dollars in cash trying to keep its operations afloat. When the company went to equity markets to raise nearly $21 billion, it suggested that the machinists’ work stoppage was creating an existential crisis.

During the strike, Boeing announced it would lay off about 10% of its workforce, plans with which the company has proceeded. Monday, the company filed a worker adjustment and retraining notification (WARN) announcement with Washington state that about 400 people would be losing their jobs come February.