Boeing Will Open 737 MAX Line in Everett by Midsummer

Boeing will open its fourth MAX production line this summer in Everett, setting a timeline that the Everett community has been waiting to hear for two years.

Boeing hopes to eventually reach a MAX production rate of 63 planes per month, Katie Ringgold, Boeing’s 737 program manager, said Tuesday, speaking at an annual conference for the businesses that make up Washington’s aerospace supply chain.

Increasing production to 63 planes per month, from its current rate of 42, would take a “number of years,” Ringgold said. But Boeing does plan to increase its MAX production rate “several times” in 2026, she continued.

The North Line in Everett is key to making that increase possible.

“We’re going to start the North Line before we need it,” Ringgold said. “You should always start a big project before you need the output of that project.”

Boeing announced its plans to open a fourth MAX production line in 2023, to capitalize on unused space in the Everett factory after it ended 747 production and moved all 787 production to its facility in North Charleston, S.C. The North Line won’t replace the three MAX lines Boeing already runs in Renton.

Boeing initially forecast the North Line would be up and running in mid-2024. Then a midair panel blowout that January slowed Boeing’s MAX production and changed its trajectory.

The Federal Aviation Administration capped Boeing’s MAX production at 38 planes per month following the panel blowout until October, when it granted the manufacturer permission to increase its production rate to 42 planes per month.

Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg told analysts in January that Boeing would again increase its MAX production rate this year, following a set of metrics it devised with the FAA to ensure it is meeting quality and safety standards before ramping up production.

After months of delays, Boeing has now started hiring for its North Line, Ortberg told analysts on the company’s most recent earnings call. In January, Boeing posted job listings for shift managers for the North Line.

On Tuesday, Ringgold said Boeing would open the North Line in midsummer. That will be the first time Boeing has assembled a narrowbody plane outside of Renton, Ringgold told suppliers at the conference, hosted by the Pacific Northwest Aerospace Alliance.

“Right now, I’m not getting a lot of sleep as we think about opening that line,” she joked.

To suppliers, she said, “we rely on each of you to support a year of growth.”

Boeing was on a path to produce 63 MAX planes per month in 2018 and at the start of 2019, before two fatal 737 MAX crashes grounded its most popular plane. The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting impact on air travel and the aerospace supply chain continued to hamper Boeing's production. Then, in January 2024, the midair fuselage blowout again slowed Boeing's factory.

Bill Alderman, an analyst with aerospace mergers and acquisition firm Alderman & Company, is optimistic Boeing is prepared for its fourth MAX line and production ramp-up.

When it comes to rate 63, Boeing won’t rush it, Alderman said. “I don’t think they’ll get there before they should.”

Boeing plans to use the North Line to build its largest variant, the 737 MAX 10. The FAA has not yet certified the MAX 10 or its smaller variant, the MAX 7. Boeing executives expect the planes will be certified this year.

On track

Ringgold and most aviation analysts and executives who spoke at the conference struck an optimistic tone about the year to come, and Boeing’s long-sought recovery.

Richard Aboulafia, an analyst with AeroDynamic Advisory who has presented on the state of the aerospace industry at the PNAA conference for 25 years, conceded that, for the first time in several years, “I can say Boeing is on the right track.”

Ringgold credited three main factors in Boeing’s production turnaround. Boeing assessed its culture, demanded quality improvements from major 737 suppliers and, Ringgold said, started to make decisions about what to do when things didn’t go as planned “at a factory level.

Workers, instead of executives, were making the call to determine if and when a plane should move forward on the assembly line.

“My phone was no longer ringing at 11 o’clock at night,” she said.

Ringgold praised suppliers who worked with Boeing to make its 2025 rate increase possible. One supplier, who didn’t receive parts on time from their own supplier, set up a new subassembly area to keep production moving, ensuring the crunch didn’t affect Boeings timeline. Another supplier was able to get Boeing a particular kind of washer in just one day, to avoid a problem that may have stopped the production line.

“A decade ago, we probably would have tolerated moving more shortages down the line,” Ringgold said. “We no longer accept that work and it’s going to make all of us better.”

Ringgold also addressed the aerospace industry’s perennial problem of attracting enough skilled labor to staff Boeing’s production line and the industry’s supply chain. The COVID-19 pandemic and resulting wave of retirements left Boeing and other companies without tenured workers to train the new hires.

Boeing is shifting its mindset around new hires, Ringgold told the group. Instead of lamenting the work required to get them up to speed, the company sees new hires as an exciting opportunity.

“You have the opportunity to mold and grow and coach and train a new workforce that is coming in with energy,” she said. “They may not know what to do, or how to do it, but that’s our job.”

Boeing is still waging a "war" for talent — it competes with Washington's tech companies and other aerospace firms for skilled workers — but Ringgold said labor shortages are less of a risk for Boeing’s production system than they had been in the past.

“As Boeing continues to stand taller and win," she said, "we are back to attracting talent.

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