Boeing to halt Max production

Name: WORLD
Price range: $

A Boeing 737 Max 8 at the assembly facility in Renton, Wash. Associated Press/Photo by Ted S. Warren (file)

Boeing doesn’t plan on the Federal Aviation Administration approving the grounded 737 Max for flight anytime soon. The company announced Monday it would suspend production of the jet at a plant in Renton, Wash., sometime in January, with no specifics on when it would restart. Countries around the world grounded the Max in March after two crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia killed a total of 346 people.

What does this mean for the company? Boeing said it won’t lay off any of the factory’s 12,000 workers yet. But the slashed production likely will affect the nation’s manufacturing sector: Since October, the U.S. aerospace industry’s factory output has fallen 14 percent compared to the same period last year.

Dig deeper: Read my report in The Sift on an October hearing at which lawmakers grilled Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg about the crashes.

Rachel Lynn Aldrich

Rachel is a former assistant editor for WORLD Digital. She is a Patrick Henry College and World Journalism Institute graduate. Rachel resides with her husband in Wheaton, Ill.