Play store
Boeing will mark another step in a marathon comeback Friday when it commemorates expanded production of the 737 MAX, now an aircraft in heavy demand after earlier disasters tarnished the company’s reputation.
Commercial airlines chief Stephanie Pope will be joined by other Boeing brass and local government leaders at a ribbon-cutting ceremony for new “North Line” MAX production in Everett, Washington state.
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,” said Jennifer Boland-Masterson, senior director for Boeing’s North Line production.
“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.
At a media tour earlier this week, the massive Convention Center-scaled space was largely empty, 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 are from Renton and the rest from 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.
