EVERETT — Boeing is beginning to hire workers for a 737 MAX 10 production line at the Everett factory and expects to start the line later this year, Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg said Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Ortberg made the comments during the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call on Tuesday morning<\/p>\n
“Facility and tooling upgrades for the production line are now complete, and we’re executing a deliberate staffing plan to support production there,” Ortberg said.<\/p>\n
Ortberg did not offer a start date for production of the new variant of the 737 MAX or the number of employees to be hired. Boeing had said its employees numbered more than 30,000 <\/a>at its Everett factory and office complex.<\/p>\n The production line can’t begin until the 737 MAX variant is certified by the FAA, an action Ortberg said he expects later this year.<\/p>\n Ortberg said the FAA has recently granted Boeing permission to expand flight testing of the 737 MAX, focusing on validating the aircraft’s avionics, propulsion, flight systems and other capabilities. He also said Boeing has a “final set of design challenges” to address de-icing issues on the 737 MAX family of jets.<\/p>\n “We’re following the lead of the FAA as we work to certify the suite of design changes,” he said.<\/p>\n The de-icing issues also affect the Boeing 737 MAX 8 and 737 MAX 9, which the FAA has allowed to continue to fly.<\/p>\n An FAA directive<\/a> in August 2023 said that running the anti-icing system in dry air for more than 5 minutes on MAX 737 jets could cause the engine inlet to become too hot, allowing parts of the housing to come loose and strike a window, posing a hazard to passengers in window seats.<\/p>\n Boeing’s plans to produce the 737 MAX 10 are three years behind <\/a>schedule<\/a>.<\/p>\n In 2021, Boeing said it expected the 737 MAX 10 variant to enter commercial service in 2023.<\/p>\n It stated a new 737 MAX production line would be added in mid-2024 in Everett to complement the three existing MAX production lines at the Renton factory. But the process was delayed when the issues with the de-icing system surfaced.<\/p>\n The 737 MAX 10 is 143 feet, 8 inches long — 66 inches longer than the Boeing MAX 9, the largest 737 MAX flying. The MAX 10 has a maximum seating capacity of 230 seats, compared to 220 for the MAX 9 and 210 for the MAX 8.<\/p>\n The news on the 737 MAX 10 came as Boeing announced net income of $8.13 billion in the fourth quarter of 2025, a massive swing from the $3.92 billion loss in the same quarter of 2024.<\/p>\n But the earnings increase was helped by the $9.6 billion gain Boeing made on the sale of portions of its Digital Aviation Solutions business during the fourth quarter, financial statements show.<\/p>\n Overall, Boeing reported a $2 billion profit in 2025. It is a significant reversal from 2024, when the company lost $11.8 billion and faced an almost two-month machinists’ strike at Boeing’s Everett and Renton factories.<\/p>\n Ortberg said on the earnings call that Boeing took a $600 million charge on its KC-46 tanker, a military refueling plane manufactured in Everett. He said the charge, which reduced the company’s earnings, is related to higher production and supply chain costs, but did not go into details.<\/p>\n Ortberg also gave an update on its wide-body 777X plane, produced at the Everett factory.<\/p>\n He said the company expects FAA certification in 2026 and the first planes to be delivered in 2027. He said test flights are continuing.<\/p>\n Various mechanical issues have delayed the plane’s launch <\/a>since 2020.<\/p>\n The latest delay came in October 2025, when Boeing announced that delivery of the first plane would be pushed from 2026 to 2027.<\/p>\n Ortberg announced during Boeing’s third-quarter earnings call that the company was taking<\/a> a $4.9 billion charge related to the 777X’s changing timeline. The wide-body jet was supposed to be delivered to launch customer Lufthansa in 2026.<\/p>\n