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The airline specified the agreement will defer the order scheduled to be delivered in the second quarter of 2025 through the end of 2026 to between 2030 and 2031. It said the agreement will improve its liquidity by about $340 million over the next two years.
Spirit noted the deferrals don’t include the direct-lease aircraft scheduled for delivery in that period, one each in the second and third quarter of 2025. It also said there are no changes to the aircraft on order with Airbus scheduled to be delivered in 2027 through 2029.
Spirit disclosed it intends to furlough about 260 pilots effective Sept. 1 as a result of grounded aircraft due to Pratt & Whitney GTF engine availability issues along with the 2025 and 2026 aircraft deferrals. As a result, it entered into a compensation agreement with Pratt & Whitney regarding the engines, which it estimates to improve its liquidity between $150 million and $200 million over the term of that agreement.
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The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating an incident in which an engine cover fell off a Southwest Airlines-flown Boeing 737-800 jet during takeoff from Denver on Sunday.
The FAA said Flight 3695, which was headed for Houston, returned safely to Denver International Airport around 8:15 a.m. after its crew reported that an engine cover fell off during takeoff and struck a wing flap.
The aircraft was towed to the gate upon landing, the FAA said.
Southwest said maintenance teams were reviewing the aircraft and apologized for the delay. The passengers were moved to another aircraft.
A Boeing spokesperson referred the request to Southwest for information about the jet and the airline’s fleet operations.
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Boeing delivered 24 737 MAX jets in March, capping the airplane maker’s slowest start to the year since the pandemic.
Boeing has been turning out fewer planes since the Jan. 5 Alaska Airlines door plug blowout. It is well below the goal it set before the accident of producing 48 737 MAXs a month.
The company has slowed its production lines to root out quality issues and amid heightened scrutiny by federal regulators.
Boeing has delivered 67 737s through the year’s first quarter, down from 112 for the same period a year ago. That’s the lowest number since the first three months of 2021, when it delivered 63.
Boeing has said it expects to pick up the pace of production later in the year.
The jet maker delivered 24 737 MAXs, up from 18 in February. It also delivered five 787 Dreamliners.
Boeing had a backlog of 5,668 planes, most of them 737s, at the end of March.
Boeing said it received orders for 113 planes and reported two order cancellations—both for 777 freighters.
Of the 737s delivered this year, 17 have gone to China. Boeing resumed deliveries to China in January after a four-year freeze following two MAX jet crashes in 2018 and 2019.
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A veteran Boeing engineer has filed a complaint with federal regulators alleging the company dismissed quality and safety concerns during production of its troubled 787 Dreamliner jets.
Federal safety officials are investigating claims by the engineer, Sam Salehpour, that in 2021 he observed Boeing using shortcuts during the 787 assembly process that placed excessive stress on important joints and embedded drilling debris between joints on more than 1,000 planes. The errors, they say, reduce the plane’s lifespan and could be difficult to detect.
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Boeing is reworking 50 undelivered 737 MAX jets after a supplier’s employee recently found misdrilled holes on some fuselages, a new production snafu for the aircraft manufacturer.
Spirit AeroSystems, which has been at the center of quality issues affecting 737s, supplied the fuselages and it was one of its employees that flagged the issue. Shares of Spirit fell in Monday trading. It reports quarterly results Tuesday.
Boeing said that the issue could delay some deliveries in the near term and that existing 737s can keep flying.
“This is the only course of action given our commitment to deliver perfect airplanes every time,” Boeing’s commercial chief Stan Deal said in a memo to staff on Sunday.
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Bolts needed to secure part of an Alaska Airlines jet that blew off in midair appear to have been missing when the plane left Boeing’s BA 1.60%increase; green up pointing triangle factory.
Boeing and other industry officials increasingly believe the plane maker’s employees failed to put back the bolts when they reinstalled a 737 MAX 9 plug door after opening or removing it during production, according to people familiar with the matter.
The increasingly likely scenario, according to some of these people, is based partly on an apparent absence of markings on the Alaska door plug itself that would suggest bolts were in place when it blew off the jet around 16,000 feet over Oregon on Jan. 5.
They also pointed to paperwork and process lapses at Boeing’s Renton, Wash., factory related to the company’s work on the plug door.
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The FAA grounded some Boeing 737 MAX 9 planes after a door plug fell from an Alaska Airlines flight. WSJ’s George Downs explores what the accident means for Boeing and whether it can afford another setback. Photo composite: NTSB/George Downs
Boeing BA 1.60%increase; green up pointing triangle was having trouble making enough 737s before the Alaska Airlines door-plug blowout. Now it faces new concerns that added inspections and regulatory scrutiny will sap its output this year.
Key airline customers are inspecting existing 737 MAX 9 planes, while federal air-safety officials are delving into the jet maker’s broader manufacturing processes. They are also examining supplier Spirit AeroSystems SPR 1.03%increase; green up pointing triangle, which produced the plane’s door plug and fuselage.
Several aerospace analysts have lowered their financial forecasts for Boeing following the Jan. 5 accident, which also led to the grounding of 170 MAX 9 jets. How significant the financial impact is will depend, they say, on how long it takes to identify the cause and secure long-awaited certification of other MAX models.
“The pace is clearly going to be affected,” said Michel Merluzeau of AIR, a research company in Seattle. “In the longer term, this puts a lot of pressure on Boeing.”
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Boeing is withdrawing a request for a safety exemption for a new MAX series jet that would have allowed U.S. regulators to speed up its approval, a decision that comes as the plane maker faces heightened scrutiny in the wake of a midair accident earlier this month.
Boeing confirmed Tuesday that it would withdraw the request, made last year to the Federal Aviation Administration, related to the new 737 MAX 7 jet’s de-icing system.
“While we are confident that the proposed time-limited exemption for that system follows established FAA processes to ensure safe operation, we will instead incorporate an engineering solution that will be completed during the certification process,” Boeing said in a statement to Dow Jones Newswires.
The decision comes amid pressure from lawmakers to drop the request in the wake of a midair blowout of a door plug on a 737 MAX 9 jet flown by Alaska Airlines on Jan. 5, and adds uncertainty to the certification timeline of the MAX 7. Before the accident, Boeing had been expecting certification of the MAX 7 and the longer MAX 10—both are already delayed—early this year.
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