Boeing 737 Max production delays expected to last a while longer

The Boeing Co.’s (NYSE: BA) deliveries from its Renton 737 factory have been, in the words of its CEO David Calhoun, “slow and lumpy” amid the company's quality-control crisis — and there’s little expectation that will change in the coming months.

Boeing has been putting into effect new inspection protocols for its fuselage supplier, Wichita, Kansas-based Spirit AeroSystems (NYSE: SPR), which has played a significant role in many of the production errors that have put Boeing in the hot seat with regulators, customers and the flying public. That process is expected to last another 60 days, after which it is confident it will receive “clean fuselages” that will allow it to speed up production, calling it “the big productivity driver in the Renton factory.”

“We're quite encouraged at just how clean they are and how quickly they move through our production cycle, substantially better, faster than before,” he said on the company’s first quarter earnings call Wednesday.

He added that toward the end of the second quarter “we will know exactly what numbers are coming out of Wichita and what expectations are. We are not going to rush it.”

https://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/news/2024/04/24/boeing-earnings-q1-2024.html