FAA Says Boeing Can Decide Whether Or Not Its Planes Are Safe, Again

The FAA will release its grip over Boeing's manufacturing processes, once more allowing the aerospace giant to self-certify its own planes for safety. Believe it or not, this is actually standard practice in the aviation industry; the FAA's Organization Designation Authorization allows planemakers to declare that their own aircraft are cleared for flight before delivering to customers. Boeing was allowed to do this for decades before cost-cutting measures led to rushed production and lax safety standards, resulting in two fatal crashes in 2018 and 2019 and a mid-flight panel blowout in 2024. And that's not even mentioning the astronauts it stranded in space. 

In response to those incidents, the FAA yanked Boeing's certification rights for the company's most popular plane, the 737 Max, in 2019. Then in 2022, due to "production quality issues," the agency also pulled the company's right to certify its largest plane, the 787 Dreamliner.

To pull itself out of its nosedive, Boeing tapped in a new president and CEO, Kelly Ortberg, with a mandate to focus on safety. That went well enough for the FAA to try a strange compromise process in September, whereby the FAA and Boeing would trade off certifying newly manufactured aircraft every other week. After months of this, the agency has "seen comparable production quality findings" between the Boeing weeks and the FAA weeks. Therefore, Boeing can now go back to self-certifying 737s and 787s full-time. The planemaker never lost the ability to certify its other aircraft, so that continues on as normal.

It's just the latest in a run of good news for the troubled 737 Max. Just weeks ago, it officially became Boeing's bestselling plane ever. The monthly production caps on that model (also imposed by the FAA as a safety measure) have risen from 38 to 47. That's all obviously great news for Boeing and — so long as the planes are being made to a higher safety standard — it's great news for the rest of us, too. 

Globally, we've been making fewer aircraft than we used to, at the same time that demand for air travel has gone through the roof. That's forced airlines to keep aging planes in service for longer, which is a safety risk all its own. If we can get new, safe 737s faster, so much the better.

Take a wider view, and things look less great. The Airbus A320 family has overtaken the 737 in lifetime sales, and its current generation has more orders than the latter aircraft. Meanwhile, stranding the astronauts has been labeled a Type A mishap by NASA, a maximum-level failure. That means that the Starliner spacecraft has to be redesigned with, you guessed it, much stricter oversight from the government agency. Sound familiar? Ortberg hasn't landed the Boeing brand safely just yet, but the FAA ruling at least gets things moving back in the right direction.