A Boeing 737 Max 8 fuselage manufactured by Spirit Aerosystems in Wichita, Kansas, is transported on a BSNF train heading west through Bozeman Pass on March 12, 2019 in Bozeman, Montana.
William Campbell | Corbes News | Getty Images
boeing company Chief Executive Dave Calhoun and other top company leaders are scheduled to meet with the Federal Aviation Administration on Thursday to present a quality improvement plan that showcases better employee training and production practices at its plants.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ordered the report after a near-catastrophic explosion in a door panel of a new 737 Max 9 aircraft earlier this year.
In late February, FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker was scheduled to participate in a meeting with Boeing leadership on Thursday, giving the company 90 days following the crash of an Alaska Airlines flight in early January. Develop quality improvement plans.
Federal safety investigators found that bolts appeared not to have been installed to hold the panels in place before the plane was shipped to the United States. Alaska Airlines.
The FAA also banned Boeing from increasing production of the 737 Max until the agency is satisfied with Boeing’s quality control improvements. That restriction is unlikely to be reversed on Thursday.
The crisis has once again damaged Boeing’s reputation, leaving it facing heightened federal scrutiny and forcing it to slow production of the 737 Max. Plane delays mean airline customers like Unity and southwest had to change their growth plans.
Boeing Chief Financial Officer Brian West said on May 23 that the company expected to burn cash this year rather than generate cash. This quarter alone, Boeing expects to use about $4 billion.
Boeing executives acknowledged that the 90-day plan would not immediately turn things around.
“The 90-day plan … is not the finish line,” West said at an investor conference last week. “We look forward to receiving feedback after next week.”
Boeing’s Thursday update is expected to detail improvements it has made to employee training, such as streamlining instructions for machine and tool availability and reducing so-called trip work, in which tasks required on a plane are completed out of sequence.
The manufacturer is also preparing to explain more about its factory “standstills,” which are pauses in work to discuss potential improvements to production lines with employees. In the months after the Alaska Airlines door jam burst, the manufacturer implemented a brief shutdown.
Calhoun, who said he would resign before the end of the year, told employees in April that the company had received more than 30,000 “ideas on how to improve” as well as “concerns raised by employees” and comments, an increase from 2023 500%.
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