Boeing 737 Max aircraft stand parked at the corporate’s manufacturing facility on November 18, 2020 in Renton, Washington.
David Ryder | Getty Images
Boeing on Thursday it warned it could likely have to reduce deliveries of its 737 Max aircraft within the near term due to a supplier-made part problem Spirit AeroSystems.
Boeing said its supplier had informed the corporate that a “non-standard” manufacturing process was used on the 2 lashings within the aft fuselages. The problem was found to affect some 737 Max 8 aircraft, the corporate’s hottest model, including customers american airlines AND Southwest Airlines. This also applies to some 737 Max 7, 737 8200 and P-8 aircraft.
Boeing said the difficulty was not an “immediate flight safety issue and the fleet in service can proceed to operate safely.”
The corporate said Boeing notified the Federal Aviation Administration of the difficulty and was working to inspect and repair the hulls as needed. The FAA said Boeing notified it of the issue and in addition said there was no immediate safety issue.
Nonetheless, the difficulty is probably going to affect a big number of undelivered 737 Max aircraft, each in production and in storage, the manufacturer said in an announcement.
“We expect lower deliveries of the 737 MAX within the near term once these required works are accomplished. We regret the impact this issue may have on affected customers and remain in touch with them regarding the delivery schedule,” Boeing said in an announcement. “We’ll provide additional information in the approaching days and weeks as we higher understand the impact of delivery.”
The issue, the newest in a string of production problems, hits Boeing because it scrambles to ramp up production and deliveries of its best-selling aircraft while customers wait for brand spanking new jets to make the most of a rebound in air traffic. Boeing is probably going to transient investors on this issue during its annual shareholders’ meeting, scheduled for Tuesday.
Boeing shares fell 6% in premarket trading on Friday. Spirit AeroSystems shares fell about 14%.
The spirit manufacturer of some fuselages utilized in Boeing planes and said in an announcement that it had informed Boeing of a “quality problem” with some 737 models.
“Spirit is working on developing the inspection and repair of damaged hulls. We proceed to coordinate closely with our customers to address this issue and minimize the impact while specializing in safety,” the corporate said.
That is the newest production problem for Boeing and its customers. Boeing earlier this yr halted deliveries of its 787 Dreamliners for several weeks to fix a knowledge evaluation flaw, and in 2021 and 2022 it struggled with other wide-body production flaws that held deliveries up for months.
On Tuesday, the corporate announced 64 aircraft deliveries in March, the very best number since December, amid an industry-wide shortage of latest jets.
Airline executives cited aircraft supply constraints as one of the essential challenges in accelerating flying ahead of the height travel season.
“We’re aware of the difficulty and are working with Boeing to understand how it could affect our MAX deliveries,” an American Airlines spokesperson said in an announcement.
Southwest said in an announcement that it expects the difficulty to affect the delivery schedule for the brand new Max aircraft and that it’s discussing the main points of that schedule for this yr “and beyond.”
United said it didn’t expect any “significant impact” to its aircraft this summer or until the top of 2023.
— Leslie Josephs and Phil LeBeau of CNBC contributed to this report.