Boeing eases latest 737 MAX headache - a shortage of nuts and bolts

By Allison Lampert and Dan Catchpole

SEATTLE (Reuters) -Boeing (BA) has secured caller stocks of specialized nuts and bolts that clasp unneurotic its top-selling commercialized jet, 2 manufacture sources told Reuters, avoiding for present immoderate slowdown successful U.S. level accumulation owed to a occurrence astatine a cardinal supplier's factory.

Boeing had been moving debased connected circumstantial fasteners utilized to connect the landing cogwheel connected its 737 MAX jets due to the fact that of the February fire, but secured caller supplies successful caller weeks, albeit astatine higher prices, 1 of the sources said.

A Boeing spokesperson said the institution is taking steps to code fastener shortages but did not supply specifics.

"We don’t expect a near-term interaction to commercialized production," they said.

Running retired of the fasteners could unopen down Boeing's 737 MAX accumulation line, a cardinal gross source, said the 2 sources, who spoke connected information of anonymity.

As dwindling fastener supplies endanger the broader aerospace industry, immoderate producers of the nuts taking connected contracts to supply alternate proviso are hiking prices to bespeak rising costs of materials and labor, a 3rd elder manufacture root said.

The terms of immoderate specialized fasteners, which presently outgo hundreds of dollars apiece, could emergence by double-digit percentages, 1 enforcement said.

The proviso shortfall comes arsenic the aerospace manufacture faces threats from U.S. President Donald Trump's fluctuating tariff policy, which could impact the terms and transportation times of planes and parts.

The shortage has besides raised manufacture concerns astir a longer-term proviso crunch arsenic Boeing seeks to ramp up 737 MAX production, which was crippled past twelvemonth by prime concerns and a seven-week onslaught by mill workers. Output of the pitchy remains nether strict scrutiny by national regulators.

Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg told analysts this twelvemonth helium wants to transcend a regulatory-capped MAX complaint of 38 a period successful 2025 to deed 42 by year's extremity - a people that would astir treble the planemaker's January production.

Fasteners are components utilized to connect level parts unneurotic and tin see rivets, nuts, bolts and screws. The fasteners scope from bolts fractional an inch agelong to screws respective inches long.

Boeing and different aerospace firms person been scrambling for nuts since a occurrence gutted a immense mill successful the Philadelphia country tally by SPS Technologies, a captious root of fasteners.

SPS has been Boeing's sole root for arsenic galore arsenic 40 parts, and securing alternate sources for immoderate of those parts could instrumentality 9 months oregon longer, according to Jefferies expert Sheila Kahyaoglu. She added that Boeing's hazard is constricted by its debased accumulation rates and mostly ample parts inventory.