flightglobal.com 10-16 March 2020 | Flight International | 33
737 MAX
Orderslast year, including the 737 Max’s Leap-1B,
taking into account this reduced Max produc-
tion rate.
Aerostructures firm Spirit AeroSystems,
however, had continued to produce the
Max’s fuselage at the monthly rate of 52, with
Boeing paying for those in excess of its
moderated 737 Max output.
Spirit also agreed to store and maintain
excess fuselages – primarily at Boeing’s risk –
at its own facilities. Both Boeing and Spirit
had intended this arrangement to last until
the beginning of May 2020. The production
rates suggest Boeing has built more Max jets
since the grounding (around 400) than it had
delivered beforehand – none of which it has
been able to hand over to customers.
Boeing’s production stoppage in Januaryled to a revised agreement with Spirit under
which the supplier would provide fewer fuse-
lages, just 216, this year. This covers barely
one-third of the 605 fuselages it delivered in
2018, and appears to put Boeing at least four
years behind its ramp-up schedule for the re-
engined jet.
Spirit had been undergoing a transition to
Max production in 2018, bringing the month-
ly fuselage output up to 52, while also coping
with a design which, it says, is 35% different
from previous 737 variants built on the same
fuselage assembly lines. Its revised pact with
Boeing – which depends heavily on the Max’s
reintroduction to service – shows that Spirit
“does not expect” a return to the pre-
grounding 52-per-month rate until late 2022.
Boeing had been intending to raise month-
ly Max production to 57 aircraft last year, but
the new Spirit agreement means this hike will
probably be delayed until the end of 2023 –
and possibly later.
Spirit had been preparing for the higher
rate by alternating daily output between two
and three fuselages, to practise for a constant
three-per-day rate, pointing out that a rate of
57 meant it would have three “balanced” pro-
duction lines, each turning out 19 fuselages
monthly, with “built-in surge capacity”. But
the manufacturing halt and delayed introduc-
tion of this increased production rate means
deliveries of hundreds of aircraft that were
contracted to be built and delivered over the
next three years will need to be deferred.REORGANISATION EFFORT
While the Max backlog could undergo a
restructuring as a result of airlines’ reassess-
ing their fleet requirements – as a conse-
quence of economic cycles or unexpected
developments, such as the Chinese corona-
virus outbreak – Boeing still faces a daunting
and costly reorganisation effort, requiring
modification of aircraft already delivered, as
well as those undelivered, and renegotiation
of delivery arrangements for aircraft yet to
be built.
“We recognise we have a lot of work to do,”
new Boeing chief executive David Calhoun
acknowledged during the airframer’s full-year
results briefing at the end of January.
“We are focused on returning the 737 Max
to service safely and restoring the long-stand-
ing trust that the Boeing brand represents
with the flying public.”
Adapting the aircraft, recovering produc-
tion rates, compensating customers and re-
suming normal service are a matter of logis-
tics, engineering, finance and mathematics.
Boeing’s most challenging task, arguably,
is to rebuild its own reputation as well as
that of the 737, its most successful aircraft
family, so badly tainted by the debacle of
Aircraft previously in service – and those yet to be delivered – will have to be modified the Max. ■
Boeing’s Renton plant had a
backlog of 4,500 aircraft at
time of the groundingShutterstockShutterstock