Inside Boeing’s 737 factory at Renton, Washington, south of Seattle, workers have pre-assembled dedicated tool kits for technicians tasked with installing software updates and readying over 500 jets that have sat idle for months, insiders said.

Across the globe, Boeing teams are hammering out delivery schedules – and financial terms – with airline customers who have been forced to cancel flights, cut routes and fly aging jetliners while they await the MAX’s return.

Although regulators must still approve the jets for flight, Boeing and airline staff and executives say the world’s largest planemaker is weeks into an elaborate blueprint for production, maintenance and delivery that one source said involves 1,500 engineers – as many as it takes to design a small new jet.

Another likened the logistics to a nation “going to war.”

Boeing Commercial Airplanes Chief Engineer John Hamilton called the previously unreported mobilization more like an elaborate “ballet,” which includes synchronizing 680 suppliers of everything from carbon brakes to pilot seatbelts.

Boeing will have to juggle the delivery of two different MAX categories: some 250 produced since the ban, parked at various facilities in tail-to-nose configurations that conjure the puzzle game Tetris; and those that will roll off the production line post-approval.

Airlines will mostly handle a third category involving the return to service of 387 aircraft flown before the grounding, though Boeing has already deployed teams around the world to help companies get ready for that process.

Reuters

Photo Rob Vogelaar