This complicates matters as the company struggles to meet demand for new aircraft that will last through the early 2030s. Bloomberg believes this introduces risk to Boeing’s annual budget and procurement targets, which which is an important step in the manufacturer’s way out of a multi-year crisis. Boeing suspended production and deliveries of the 737 line this month when a new problem was discovered, although it still plans to increase plane production by 23% in the second half of 2023, said Wednesday Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun.
The production failure at supplier Spirit AeroSystems Holdings might not have gone undetected at all without “the attention of the employee,” Calhoun said. According to him, this person noticed a malfunction of the fittings used to fix the vertical stabilizer to the rear of the fuselage. An imperfect process is nearly impossible to detect once sealant has been applied or once the tail plane is locked in place.
Hundreds of 737s built since 2019 could potentially be affected and need to be refurbished, analysts say. The United States Federal Aviation Administration has determined that this deficiency is not a major safety hazard that must be corrected immediately for aircraft already flying commercially. Repairs to the finished plane are expected to take “several weeks,” Calhoun said. For planes that are early in the production process, repairs will only take a few days.
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