Boeing continues to face limits on the number of planes it can make and tougher safety inspections after U.S. aviation regulators called on it to overhaul its safety culture.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) held a three-hour meeting with Boeing’s senior executives on Thursday to outline the company’s plans to resolve safety and quality control issues.
Boeing has been under increasing pressure since a panel blocking the passenger door of an Alaska Airlines new 737 Max 9 blew up during a flight on Jan. 5, forcing pilots to make an emergency landing and puncturing a hole in the side of the plane, prompting the FAA to temporarily suspend all flights of the plane.
The FAA stepped up its scrutiny of Boeing after the crash, giving the company 90 days in late February to develop a comprehensive plan to address “systemic quality-control issues” and barring it from expanding production of the 737 Max after the January crash. Boeing submitted the plan to the FAA on Thursday.
As a result, the FAA said senior executives would meet weekly with manufacturers to review performance indicators, and Boeing should take steps such as strengthening its safety management system, including employee safety reporting, and strengthening internal audits of its production systems.
The FAA said it wants to send more safety inspectors to Boeing and Spirit AeroSystems facilities and conduct additional inspections at key points in the production process. Boeing is also required to have a safety management system that ensures a structured approach to identifying hazards and managing risks.
FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker said, Said After the meeting, regulators said they would continue to step up their scrutiny of Boeing and its suppliers and hold the company “accountable at every step.”
“Institutional reform is not easy, but in this case it is absolutely necessary, and when it comes to air passenger safety, the work is never done,” he said.
Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun said: Said The company said in a statement that it has submitted a plan to the FAA to strengthen its safety controls.
He said: “Many of these measures are underway and our teams are committed to implementing each element of the plan. Through this process of continuous learning and improvement, our industry has made commercial aviation the safest mode of transportation, and the measures we are taking today further strengthen that foundation.”
The 737 Max production restrictions are becoming a major cost for Boeing, and the slowdown in production could have a knock-on effect on U.S. GDP. Boeing Chief Financial Officer Brian West said last week that the company will not generate cash through 2024. It is also facing delays in China as regulators review batteries used in cockpit voice recorders.
Boeing has come under renewed scrutiny in the months since the door plug failure, after a whistleblower testified before the U.S. Senate in April that engineers at the manufacturer were cutting corners that could have led to further failures. The whistleblower alleged that Boeing retaliated against her for raising concerns. Boeing denied the allegations of retaliation at the time but acknowledged that the company’s culture still had room for improvement.
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Boeing is currently facing a U.S. Justice Department investigation into whether the January crash violated settlements reached with Washington after two 737 Max crashes in Indonesia in 2018 and Ethiopia in 2019 that killed 346 people.
The two crashes unleashed the biggest crisis in Boeing’s history, leading regulators to ground the company’s best-selling 737 Max jet for nearly two years. The scandal caused orders for the plane to plummet and helped Boeing’s rival, Europe’s Airbus, build a big lead in global aviation markets that was thwarted for several years by the coronavirus pandemic.
Airbus aims to increase deliveries of the new planes to 800 this year, up from 735 in 2023. The airline has hit that milestone only twice before, including a record 863 deliveries in 2019.
But Airbus is facing challenges in ramping up production, which could delay deliveries to some customers, Reuters reported on Friday. An Airbus spokesman said the company’s goal of accelerating production of its best-selling A320 jet “remains unchanged,” but acknowledged that “the business environment is complex and not improving.”
