A Boeing 737 MAX 10 fuselage is pictured during the opening ceremony for the company's new North Line assembly line, which will produce 737 MAX aircraft, at the Boeing Everett Factory in Everett, Washington, on July 10, 2026. (Photo by Jason Redmond / AFP)
Everett, United States: Boeing marked another step in a marathon comeback Friday when it celebrated expanded production of the 737 MAX, now an aircraft in heavy demand after earlier disasters tarnished the company's reputation.
At a rousing ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by hundreds of Boeing employees, commercial airlines chief Stephanie Pope and Washington state elected officials characterized the new $1 billion "North Line" MAX production line investment in Everett, Washington as the appropriate next step for an industrial site that has been building Boeing's most storied aircraft for decades.
"This investment is a vote of confidence in our workforce, in American manufacturing, and the future of aerospace in the city of Everett," said Everett Mayor Cassie Franklin. "This factory has repeatedly shown the world what is possible."
Boeing has big plans for the North Line, envisioning a production cadence comparable to that in Renton, 35 miles to the south, which until this week was the exclusive home of MAX assembly.
But in keeping with Boeing's caution after two deadly MAX crashes, executives plan a gradual ramp-up in Everett for a jet that once defined the company's problems but is now at the center of its comeback.
"It's a rolling start," Jennifer Boland-Masterson, senior director for Boeing's North Line production said earlier this week on a media tour of the new production line.
"We're going to start off slower and then increase our rates," Boland-Masterson said, describing the work ahead on the site's first 737 MAX 10 fuselage that was just beginning to be assembled.
The Everett building was used to assemble the Boeing 787 Dreamliner before Boeing shifted the operation to South Carolina.
While triumphant music played at Friday's ceremony, the massive Convention Center-scaled space was largely empty earlier in the week, save for dormant cranes, a scattering of workers and the occasional hum of drilling.
The Everett operation is based closely on the MAX assembly lines in Renton. Operations are spread out over 10 "flow days," including days when wings are added and the structure is outfitted with engines, seats and other components.
Boland-Masterson declined to offer a timetable for when the first North Line MAX aircraft would complete the process. Boeing is training 1,000 North Line staff, about half from Renton and the rest new recruits.
The operation -- located in Everett because of the lack of available land in Renton -- will be a central element in Boeing's goal to lift MAX output from the current 47 per month to 63 and possibly higher, in a ramp-up closely overseen by federal aviation regulators.
