After Repeated Crises, Boeing Looks to Turn a Corner

One morning this month, a bay door opened at an enormous Boeing airplane factory north of Seattle, where workers rolled in an emerald-green fuselage.

It was only the second 737 Max to enter production at this factory in Everett, Wash., and it was a milestone of sorts for Boeing.

Ever since the 737 debuted in 1967, the plane has been almost exclusively produced in a factory in Renton, a Seattle suburb. But Renton is nearing its capacity, and the addition of a second production site in Everett will help Boeing fulfill its ambitions to build more of the 737 Max, by far its most popular plane.

More broadly, the expansion of the 737’s production is a sign of the progress Boeing has made as part of its turnaround efforts more than two years after its last major crisis. In January 2024, a poorly installed panel blew off a 737 Max jet during a flight, unleashing renewed federal oversight and public scrutiny of Boeing. At the time, the company had only just started to recover meaningfully from a much more serious crisis prompted by Max crashes in 2018 and 2019, in which 346 people died.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/17/business/boeing-turnaround-737-max.html