https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/faa-halt-boeing-max-production-expansion-hit-airlines-suppliers-2024-01-25/
Boeing believed that they only needed an experience lead engineer or lead mechanic, and you could hire only level 1 engineers and mechanics with no experience, and still maintain the same production. Literally only an accountant would make such a naïve decision but the company is being run by accountants and been counters.
They’ve always severely undervalued their experienced people and workforce. Most of their quality people retired and they did not have people in the pipeline to replace them. You can’t replace someone with 40 years experience with someone with five years experience and not lose what made you great.
The idea that you could outsource 2000 engineering jobs to Moscow and Ukraine was so misguided. When they were forced to close the design center, they had no one in the pipeline.
They cant speed up even if they were allowed to. They can't even make the current rate.
I think it’s just an excuse. These companies are using to not buy Boeing 737. They don’t wanna come out and publicly state their lack of confidence in the aircraft.
You can’t have a mechanic with 40 years experience retire, and expect a new hire with no experience to replace them, and not lose a tremendous amount of production.
They should’ve been training replacement workers for the last five years, anticipating the layoffs of older workers. Instead, Boeing did everything they could to push those older workers out. Now they’re reaping the rewards.
FAA should pulled their manufacturing certificate and suspended operation. Very likely there are out of compliance components going into their airplanes that FAA online inspections won't find. Have to assume both supplier and Boeing processes are bad until it can be proven otherwise.