Boeing (NYSE:BA) +3.6% pre-market Friday after The Wall Street Journal reported the planemaker is expected to regain authority from the Federal Aviation Administration to perform final safety checks on its 737 MAX jets, a sign that U.S. government officials are becoming more satisfied with the company’s effort to improve its manufacturing process.
The FAA often delegates routine inspections to aerospace companies to focus personnel on more critical tasks, but the agency tightened oversight of Boeing (NYSE:BA) in 2019 after two deadly 737 MAX crashes.
The restrictions have limited Boeing’s (BA) flexibility in delivering planes to customers, having to work on government employees’ workday schedules to get safety approvals, so returning some of the authority to the company could free up FAA inspectors to more closely monitor the production of planes, rather than paperwork at the end of the process, according to WSJ.
The FAA is also expected to allow Boeing (BA) to increase its production rate for the 737 MAX to 42 planes per month from a current cap of 38, according to the report.
Regulators, citing Boeing’s (BA) emphasis on production over quality, imposed the production limit after the January 2024 midair blowout of fuselage panel in an Alaska Airlines jet.