The Boeing 737 MAX has been grounded for just over six months. With plans underway to get the aircraft back in the sky, Boeing has been making provisions to deliver the hundreds of late 737 MAX aircraft currently sitting in carparks around their Washington state factory.

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Grounded MAXs near Boeing Field. Photo: SounderBruce / Wikimedia Commons

One such move is to hire more staff to inspect and prepare the grounded 737 MAX aircraft for delivery, according to ATW Online.

What are the details?

Boeing has a large backlog of 737 MAX aircraft that it needs to be able to deliver rapidly to customers, some of whom have been waiting years for their new aircraft.

The aircraft builder is currently storing a fleet of undelivered 737 MAX aircraft at the nearby Moses Lake’s Grant County Airport. They plan to ramp up the amount of staff on-site when they have final approval to fly the aircraft, to ensure that they can deliver as many 737 aircraft as possible. According to the published source, Boeing plans to increase this workforce by a 'few hundred' to get the job done.

It is likely that, if this plan is successful, Boeing will then increase staff at other delivery sites. But this plan will not be without issues.

Boeing 737 MAX Fund
Airlines have had to make alternative plans while the Boeing 737 MAX is grounded. Photo: Boeing

What is Boeing's plan to deliver the late 737 MAX aircraft?

The CEO of Boeing, Dennis Muilenburg, touched on these issues at the Bernstein Strategic Decisions Conference on May 29th, where he said,

"It's a really individual customer-by-customer and individual airplane-by-airplane. So today, we have field service teams that are out deployed with every single one of the airplanes that are out in the field. We're going to treat the return to service as an entry into service event. So each airplane by tail number will get individual attention with individual customers tailored to the condition of that particular airplane, how it's been stored, where it's been stored, the condition of operation. So we have at that very specific level of detail. So one is, is a clear understanding – attention to detail at the airplane level.

"Secondly, this will be governed by the regulatory authorities when we get approval to get back up to flight. Our hope is that we'll have a broad international alignment with the FAA, but there may be some international authorities that will operate on a different schedule. So we'll have to tailor our plans depending on regulatory approval to get the airplane back up and flying.

"And then our customers are also working through their flight schedules. Obviously, we've affected summer flight schedules for many, and we regret that. It's something that we're discussing with a number of our airline customers. We know that's painful for them. Some of them, as a result, will want to move airplane deliveries out. We've had other customers who said they'd like the airplanes earlier, they need lift sooner, so they'd like to accelerate in the skyline.

"So we're looking at it through all of those dimensions. It's really health of each airplane, regulatory approvals, and individual customer fleet planning and squaring off that equation, so that we manage our skyline to the benefit of our customers. So that is a very active daily discussion. I would expect to see skyline movement, both some airplanes moving out, other airplanes moving forward as we accommodate different customer needs."

Alaska Boeing 737 MAX
Alaska expected one MAX to be delivered by now, and another two by the end of the year. Image: Boeing

What is the timeline for 737 MAX deliveries?

The Boeing CEO also touched on the actual timeline for these deliveries at the Aspen Ideas Festival on June 26th, 2019, saying,

"It's a timeline that varies for each airline. But just to give you a sense of it, we have about 385 MAXes that we've previously delivered to airlines that are currently grounded. We've also been continuing to build airplanes in our factory in Renton at a rate of 42 a month so we have a hundred to 150 additional airplanes that have been built but not yet delivered to customers. So if you add those all together it's more than 500 airplanes that we want to get back into service with our customers.

"And our approach to this is what we call entry-into-service approach. In other words, each airplane, each individual airplane has a team assigned to it working hand in hand with our customers. And depending on those airplanes and how our customers want to ramp them back up, it could be, you know, measured in days or weeks for each airplane. And processing through 500 airplanes will take some time. And so that's the phased ramp-up. Most importantly again, we're going to be very focused on safety and helping our customers get the fleet back up and operating in a safe manner."

What do you think? Will Boeing be able to deliver all these 737 MAX aircraft quickly and to their customers' satisfaction? Let us know in the comments.