Boeing expands 737 MAX output with Everett line

Boeing is expanding 737 MAX production with a new line in Everett, Washington, as the company tries to raise output under close federal regulatory oversight.

Commercial airlines chief Stephanie Pope and other Boeing officials were due to attend a ribbon-cutting for the new “North Line” MAX production site on July 10. The Everett line adds capacity to Renton, Washington, which had been the exclusive home of MAX assembly until this week.

Boeing plans a gradual start. Jennifer Boland-Masterson, senior director for North Line production, said work had just begun on the site's first 737 MAX 10 fuselage and that the company would “start off slower and then increase our rates.”

Boeing is training 1,000 North Line staff, about half from Renton and the rest new recruits. The company wants to lift MAX output from the current 47 aircraft a month to 63 and possibly higher. A Boeing handout said that, after low-rate initial production at Everett, the North Line would help the programme reach 52 aircraft a month.

Regulatory hurdles remain. The Federal Aviation Administration must certify the 737 MAX 10 and sign off on Boeing's Everett production plans before commercial aircraft from the site can be delivered.

The MAX programme remains central to Boeing's recovery after two deadly crashes in 2018 and 2019 killed 346 people and after a January 2024 incident in which a window panel on an Alaska Airlines jet blew out midflight before an emergency landing with no fatalities.