Boeing, FAA hold three hours of talks on quality plan

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Boeing’s outgoing CEO Dave Calhoun and other senior company officials met with the head of the Federal Aviation Administration for about three hours on Thursday to discuss the planemaker’s comprehensive plan to address “systemic quality-control issues.”

Boeing (NYSE:) had been directed by FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker in late February to produce the plan after he barred Boeing from expanding 737 MAX production after a door panel blowout during a Jan. 5 flight on a new Alaska Airlines 737 MAX 9. Whitaker will talk about the meeting with reporters later today.

The meeting was Calhoun’s second high-profile meeting with Whitaker this year as Boeing seeks to have costly production limits lifted by the FAA after soaring quality concerns compelled the regulator to slow its rapidly increasing 737 production schedule.

Calhoun is due to leave the company by the end of the year as part of a broader management shake-up announced in the wake of the Alaska Airlines incident, but Boeing has not yet named a replacement.

The meeting included other senior Boeing leaders including Stephanie Pope, the new head of Boeing Commercial Airplanes as well as Boeing’s head of quality Elizabeth Lund and Mike Fleming, Boeing senior vice president and general manager, airplane programs, the sources said.

Boeing said this month it has added new training material for manufacturing and quality roles averaging about 20 to 50 more training hours per employee, while more than 7,000 new tools and equipment have been provided for commercial airplane work.

“We anticipate the FAA will take whatever time is necessary to review that plan and hold us accountable,” Calhoun said at Boeing’s annual meeting on May 17. “This is more of a beginning than it is an end.”

Whitaker said last week that Boeing faces a “long road” to address safety issues. He added the 90-day plan “is not the end of the process. It’s the beginning and it’s going to be a long road to get Boeing back to where they need to be making safe airplanes.”

The FAA said earlier Boeing must take steps to improve its Safety Management System (SMS) program, which it committed to in 2019 and combine it with a Quality Management System to “create a measurable, systemic shift in manufacturing quality control.”

Boeing is currently producing significantly fewer than the 38 737 MAXs per month it is permitted under the FAA directive.

A February meeting between Boeing executives and Whitaker lasted about seven hours.

Boeing faces a separate criminal investigation into the MAX 9 mid-air emergency. The Justice Department said this month that Boeing breached its obligations in a 2021 agreement shielding the planemaker from criminal prosecution over fatal 737 MAX crashes.

Boeing denied it has breached the deal. The Justice Department directed Boeing to respond by June 13 and intends to decide whether to prosecute Boeing by July 7.