NEW ORLEANS - Boeing is navigating a safety culture shift which involves implementing its new Safety and Quality Plan along with a detailed Corrective Action Plan in response to Federal Aviation Administration audit recommendations following the Mid-Exit door incident one year ago.
On Jan. 5, 2024, a mid-exit door plug detached from the left side of a nearly new Boeing 737 Max 9 plane carrying 171 passengers and crew. This led to rapid decompression and forced the Alaska Airlines flight to make an emergency landing, returning to Portland, Oregon.
While the pilots and cabin crew brought the airplane and everyone onboard safely back to the ground, the incident raised immediate concerns about safety at Boeing. The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) launched an investigation and halted the production expansion of the Boeing 737 MAX airplanes.
Boeing issued a corrective action plan in May 2024 following an intensive audit by the FAA in March 2024. The plan focusses on strengthening Boeing’s safety management system including simplifying and clarifying procedures and work instructions and enhancing supplier oversight and employee training.
“What’s truly needed is a fundamental cultural shift that’s oriented around safety, quality improvement and effective employee engagement and training,” said FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker.
In Aug. 2024, Boeing named Kelly Ortberg as its new CEO following a loss of $1.4 billion in the second quarter prompted by the dramatically increased scrutiny over safety and quality control. Ortberg has chosen to work 2,300 miles from the company’s corporate offices near Arlington, Virginia, to help restore trust in the company’s commercial aircraft business.
“Because what we do is complex, I firmly believe that we need to get closer to the production lines and development programs across the company,” Ortberg said in a memo to Boeing staff. “I plan to be based in Seattle so that I can be close to the commercial airplane programs.”
Since January last year, Boeing has gathered feedback from employees, regulators, customers and independent experts to develop their updated Safety & Quality Plan to strengthen their safety management, quality assurance and safety culture.
The new plan is organized around investing in workforce training, simplifying plans and processes, eliminating defects, and elevating a safety and quality culture. The plan also sets forth measures to continuously monitor and manage the health of the production system. Boeing says it has addressed over 70% of the action items recommended by employees in its commercial airplane production process. Boeing has also instituted random, daily quality audits of documented removals in high-frequency areas to ensure compliance to process. Boeing’s governance and work instruction documents have been revised and curriculum for staff training programs have been updated.
Despite these changes, Boeing’s machinists went on strike in Sept. 2024 with nearly 95 percent rejecting Boeing’s offer to raise pay by 25 percent over four years. The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, the trade union of Boeing staff, had originally demanded 40 percent wage increases over three years.
In Nov. 2024 Boeing made a fourth formal offer of a 38 percent wage increase over four years, plus ratification and productivity bonuses and 59 percent of union members who cast ballots agreed to approve it despite Boeing’s rejection of strikers’ demand to restore a company pension plan that was frozen nearly a decade ago.
With the acceptance of Boeing’s offer, factory workers can now restart the idled Pacific Northwest assembly lines.
The FAA is still actively monitoring Boeing’s progress in a variety of ways, including having a team of FAA subject matter experts continually review Boeing’s progress against the audit findings and expert panel recommendations. In addition, senior FAA leaders meet with Boeing weekly to review their performance metrics and conduct monthly reviews to gauge Boeing’s progress. The FAA also continues to issue airworthiness certificates for every newly produced Boeing 737 MAX.
“As expected, Boeing has made progress executing its comprehensive plan in these areas, and we will continue to closely monitor the results as they begin to ramp up production following the strike,” said Whitaker.
