Dave Calhoun, Chairman of Boeing.
Adam Jeffery | CNBC
Boeing’s new CEO, Dave Calhoun, swayed Wednesday that he wants the company to resume production of the 737 Max months before regulators sign off on the planes and airlines make to return them to service.
Boeing suspended production of the planes this month because a worldwide grounding of the jetliners after two damaging crashes lasted months longer than expected. Boeing shares fell more than 3% on Tuesday after the callers pushed back its estimate of when regulators would sign off on the planes by months to the middle of 2020.
The 737 Max production shutdown has already outlay thousands of jobs and raised concerns about the crisis’ impact on the broader economy.
But Calhoun’s comments indicate the house does not expect the production pause to last more than a few months.
“We got to get that line started up again,” he suggested on a conference call with reporters. “And the supply chain will be reinvigorated even before that.”
Boeing shares flatten 1.4% Wednesday, bringing their weekly losses to nearly 5%.
The 737 Max crisis has rippled through Boeing’s accumulation chain, which includes General Electric and Spirit AeroSystems. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin earlier this month estimated that the disputes stemming from the plane’s grounding could shave half a percentage point off U.S. economic growth this year.
Wichita, Kansas-based Panache AeroSystems on Jan. 10 announced it would cut an initial 2,800 jobs because of the Max grounding.
Calhoun said Wednesday that Boeing is not developing to lay off or furlough any of its employees because of the production pause, even with Boeing’s new estimate that regulators will approve the glides again midyear.
Calhoun, a decadelong Boeing board member who took the helm of the manufacturer last week, is rebuked with steadying the company, shaken by the 737 Max upheaval.
Internal emails that were recently made followers revealed employees boasted about bullying regulators into accepting less time-consuming pilot training beforehand officials allowed Boeing to deliver the planes to airlines. In other messages, Boeing employees expressed safety have relations about the plane. In the wide-ranging call with reporters, Calhoun said he intended to improve the company’s culture and reassurance employee morale.
A flight-control system Boeing included in the jets was implicated in the two Max crashes — a Lion Air flight in October 2018 and an Ethiopian Airlines scarper less than five months later — which killed all 346 people on board. Boeing is now scrambling to get regulators to to forgo off on changes to that software and other fixes to the plane.
The Federal Aviation Administration has said several times that it doesn’t set up a firm timeline to recertify the planes.