By David Shepardson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump’s nominee to head the U.S. Transportation Department said he will keep in place a cap on production of Boeing 737 MAX planes put in place after a mid-air panel blowout last year until he is satisfied it can be safely raised.
“The cap will be maintained and will be lifted when I, in consultation with the career safety experts at FAA and the Administrator, have confidence that a production increase will not reduce the quality of the aircraft being produced,” said former Representative Sean Duffy in written comments submitted to the Senate Commerce Committee.
In January 2024, then Federal Aviation Administration chief Mike Whitaker imposed the 38 planes per month production cap after a door panel missing four key bolts flew off a new Alaska Airlines 737 MAX 9.
Duffy, whose nomination was approved by the committee on Wednesday on a 28-0 vote, said last week that Boeing needed “tough love” to get back on track.
In his written responses to questions from senators on Wednesday, Duffy said he planned to meet with Boeing’s leadership at the “earliest feasible moment” so he could “make clear that the Department and the FAA will continue to hold them accountable to the action plan they developed, and which was accepted by the department.”
Duffy added that he “will also be instructing FAA leadership to monitor the adequacy of the action plan.”
In May 2022, the FAA approved a three-year renewal of Boeing’s Organization Designation Authorization (ODA) program that delegates some aircraft certification tasks to the planemaker rather than the five years Boeing had requested. The approval will expire in a few months.
Duffy said he will work with the FAA Administrator and career safety experts “on the future parameters of Boeing’s ODA.” The arrangement came under scrutiny after two deadly 737 MAX crashes in 2018 and 2019 linked to one of the aircraft’s systems.
Boeing declined to comment.
Whitaker stepped down as FAA administrator on Monday, when Trump took office, and the new administration has not nominated a successor or said who will run the agency on an acting basis.
(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Sandra Maler and Jamie Freed)
