Boeing Co said on Tuesday that it plans to add extra staff and hire "a few hundred" temporary employees at an airport in Washington state, where it is storing many grounded 737 MAX jetliners. This is a key step in its best-case plan for resuming deliveries to airline customers in October.
The world's largest planemaker is burning cash as one of the worst crises in its history stretches into its sixth month.
It said workers will assist with aircraft maintenance and customer delivery preparations at Grant County International Airport.
The hiring plans are the first publicly-detailed steps Boeing has taken as it works to deliver hundreds of grounded 737 MAX jets to airlines globally - an undertaking that would amount to one of the biggest logistical operations in modern civil aviation.
Chicago-based Boeing has been unable to deliver any 737 MAX aircraft since the single-aisle plane was grounded worldwide in March, after two fatal crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia killed 346 people, cutting off a key source of cash and hitting margins.
Global airlines have had to cancel thousands of flights and utilize spare aircraft to cover routes that were previously flown with the fuel-efficient MAX, eating into their profitability. Many carriers have removed the MAX from their schedules until late into the autumn or early 2020.
Boeing reiterated on Tuesday that it was working toward getting the 737 MAX back into commercial flight in the "early fourth quarter," after it acquires the approval of its reprogrammed software for the stall-prevention system which was at the center of both crashes.
In late July, US Federal Aviation Administration Deputy Administrator Dan Elwell declined to be pinned down to Boeing's previously-stated target of an October entry into service.
"We don't have a timeline," Elwell said. "We have one criteria … When the complications to it have been satisfactorily assessed, and the MAX is safe to return to service, that's the only criteria."
Boeing said it plans to move all aircraft from Moses Lake, an eastern Washington location where it runs test flights, to facilities in the Seattle and Everett areas where its factories are located.
Hundreds of Boeing 737 MAX jets remain grounded worldwide, and Boeing has continued building the jets at a rate of 42 per month in the Seattle area.
The US planemaker is also storing newly-built aircraft outside its factories in Renton and Everett, around Seattle. Additionally, it has jets parked at a facility in San Antonio, Texas.
The total cost of the 737 MAX crisis thus far is more than $8 billion, mainly due to the compensation the planemaker will have to pay airlines for delayed deliveries and lower production.
