Holidays at risk as fresh production glitch worsens Boeing delays
38 The 737 Max airliners that Boeing is restricted to producing per month while quality control issues are under review
BOEING is to delay work on dozens of its 737 Max jets after fresh problems were flagged up by a supplier, posing a potential threat to families’ summer holiday plans.
The US company said Spirit Aerosystems had discovered mis-drilled holes on some fuselages that affect the window frames on some planes.
Any delays to the aircraft’s production threaten to set back deliveries to airlines, which could in turn limit their passenger capacity this summer. Ryanair has already warned that delays to 737 deliveries will reduce the seats it has available during peak season, with the airline set to be five to 10 aircraft short.
The company has ordered 57 Boeing Max 8200 planes for delivery by the end of April.
Variations of the Boeing 737 are used around the world, with Ryanair, Tui and Norwegian among the European airlines that operate them currently.
Boeing is already under heavy fire from regulators and its airline customers over the mid-air blowout of a door plug on a 737 Max 9 jet on Jan 5.
Sir Tim Clark, the boss of Emirates Airlines, became the latest carrier chief to raise concerns, warning that Boeing was in the “last chance saloon”.
Stan Deal, chief executive of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, told staff that the latest problem had been flagged by Spirit last Thursday, in a letter first reported by Reuters. He added: “While this potential condition is not an immediate flight safety issue and all 737s can continue operating safely, we currently believe we will have to perform rework on about 50 undelivered airplanes.”
Spirit said it was working closely with Boeing on the matter. It is the latest effort by Boeing to tighten its operations after the January blowout on an Alaska Airlines flight raised questions about quality control at the company.
As the company announced financial results late last month, Boeing chief executive Dave Calhoun vowed to address safety concerns as he admitted the plane-maker faces a “serious challenge” to recover from the crisis.
American investigators, who have been examining whether the bolts on the Alaska Airlines door plug were missing or just badly fitted, were expected to issue an interim report this week. In the meantime, the US regulator has ordered Boeing to cap 737 production at the current rate of 38 jets a month for an undefined period while it addresses quality lapses, deferring the increases in production needed to meet rising demand for new jets.
That will deal a blow to the company’s ongoing recovery from an earlier safety crisis caused by two fatal crashes in 2018 and 2019, as well as a slump in airliner orders during the pandemic.
Shares in Boeing fell by 2pc yesterday to $202.57.