The American regulator Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) says Boeing's grounded 737 Max 9 fleet can return back to sky again after a "thorough inspection and maintenance process." But the agency also imposed sweeping jet production restrictions at the company's factories.
This will hit Boeing commercially as it wanted to ramp up the B737MAX 9 production to better compete with Airbus, amid growing airlines' demand for the new planes in a market that's witnessing significant travel growth.
It's been nearly three weeks since federal regulators took 171 Boeing aircraft out of service after part of the fuselage, or to be specific the inactive door plug of an Alaska Airlines aircraft fell off at 16,000 feet after taking off from the Portland International Airport in the United States of America.
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Following the 25th January announcement, both United and Alaska Airlines revealed plans to resume flying their grounded 737 Max 9 aircraft after receiving final approval from the agency to complete the process to return the aircrafts to service.
"We grounded the Boeing 737-9 MAX within hours of the incident over Portland and made clear this aircraft would not go back into service until it was safe," FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker said in a statement late Wednesday.
"The exhaustive, enhanced review our team completed after several weeks of information gathering gives me and the FAA confidence to proceed to the inspection and maintenance phase."
The FAA's announcement comes amid growing questions about quality control at the Boeing factory where the 737 was assembled.
An apparent Boeing whistleblower says that mistakes inside the aerospace giant's plant in Renton, Wash. were likely to blame for the incident. The self-described Boeing employee alleges that four key bolts that are supposed to hold the door in place were never reinstalled after maintenance work before the jet left the factory.
The FAA announcement did not mention those allegations. But the agency has its own concerns about Boeing's production and manufacturing processes.
The FAA laid out an inspection and maintenance process that the company must carry out on each of its grounded 171 Boeing 737-9 MAX aircrafts in order to make them eligible to return to service.
"This won't be back to business as usual for Boeing," Whitaker said, announcing that the FAA would not grant any requests from Boeing to expand production of the Max aircraft, "until we are satisfied that the quality control issues uncovered during this process are resolved."
The production cap applies to Max 8 and 9 (which are in use around the world) as well as the upcoming smaller Max 7 and larger Max 10 variants.
It's quite obvious that Boeing has been in a ramp up mode to clear the substantial backlog of orders that resulted due to a global grounding of the B737Max aircraft following a pair of fatal crashes in 2018 and 2019 which killed a total of 346 people. Those crashes were blamed on MCAS , a faulty flight control system on the revamped N737 variant.
Now, the roadmap comes after an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 Max 9 plane lost its exit door plug during a flight earlier this month that prompted the launch of a federal investigation in addition to the aircrafts' grounding in U.S. territory.
The non-fatal event aboard Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 has also resulted in a multi-passenger lawsuit and raised further questions about the B737MAX's safety.
Following the grounding, during the inspection and or preparation phase, both Alaska and United Airlines said they found problems with loose hardware.
Before the mid-flight incident, Boeing said to have advised carriers in December to conduct checks on its 737 Max jets after an airline had discovered a "bolt with a missing nut."
Boeing declined to comment on the whistleblower allegations, citing an ongoing investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board. Investigators at the NTSB had previously raised the possibility that the bolts on the door plug panel were not properly installed.
Boeing CEO, Dave Calhoun, was at Capitol Hill Wednesday to face questions from the lawmakers over Boeing’s safety procedures.He said to the media ,
“We don't put airplanes in the air that we don't have 100% confidence in,” “I'm here today in the spirit of transparency to number one, recognize the seriousness of what you just asked, and number two, to share everything I can with our Capitol Hill interests and answer all their questions, because they have a lot of them."
Following the FAA's announcement, Boeing said it would work with regulators and airlines to get the grounded planes back in the air.
"We will continue to cooperate fully and transparently with the FAA and follow their direction as we take action to strengthen safety and quality at Boeing," said a statement from Boeing spokesperson Jessica Kowal.
"We will also work closely with our airline customers as they complete the required inspection procedures to safely return their 737-9 airplanes to service."
United and Alaska Airlines have both been forced to cancel thousands of flights while waiting for this final inspection guidance from regulators and Boeing. On Tuesday, the CEOs of both companies were sharply critical of Boeing in separate interviews.
Following up on the latest communication from FAA , Alaska Airlines announced in a statement that it expects to bring the first of its grounded planes "back into scheduled commercial service on Friday."
In a letter to United employees on Wednesday, chief operating officer Toby Enqvist said the company would begin the process of inspecting its fleet of 79 grounded jets.
"We are preparing aircraft to return to scheduled service beginning on Sunday," Enqvist said. "We will only return each MAX 9 aircraft to service once this thorough inspection process is complete."
However, with the latest developments from the regulator , United Airlines said in a letter to employees that it hopes to resume flying the grounded planes on Sunday.
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