Cultural shift? Boeing highlights quality improvements under new production safety plan.

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Boeing said it's on track with its safety and quality improvement plan as the new year begins.

The storied manufacturer faced criticism for what many saw as slipping standards on its production lines in recent years.

In January 2024, an Alaska Airlines flight operated by a months-old 737 Max lost a piece of the fuselage mid-flight. Since then, Boeing has been under heightened scrutiny from regulators, which included a forced production slowdown and the temporary grounding of some 737 Max planes.

However, according to Boeing, its turnaround is well underway.

What Boeing is doing to improve safety and quality

Boeing said it's working in a number of areas to improve safety and make its company culture more open for feedback from workers on the line.

Some of those improvements include:

• Increased confidentiality protections for employees who identify issues
• Greater investment in workforce training
• Random quality audits on the production line
• Plans to overhaul training documents

The progress is a realization of some of the promises Boeing made on safety improvements during a tour it hosted for journalists in June.

The Federal Aviation Administration's outgoing administrator Mike Whitaker also said his agency is committed to ongoing, enhanced oversight of Boeing to ensure the manufacturer continues to improve.

"We’re actively monitoring the results (of Boeing's safety and quality plan) and keeping a close eye on work at key Boeing facilities," Whitaker wrote in a blog post on Medium. "But this is not a one-year project. What’s needed is a fundamental cultural shift at Boeing that’s oriented around safety and quality above profits. That will require sustained effort and commitment from Boeing, and unwavering scrutiny on our part."

Is flying still safe?

In the aftermath of high-profile incidents like the Alaska Airlines decompression last year and last week's Jeju Air crash, travelers often wonder if flying is still a safe way to get around.

Experts insist that it is, and even with Boeing's high-profile issues, fatal incidents involving Boeing planes (or any commercial airliner) are extremely rare.

When to blame Boeing

Not every incident that involves a Boeing aircraft is the manufacturer's fault.

Boeing has been increasingly candid about the quality issues in its factories that it's working to address. However, new planes are still coming off the line and safely transporting passengers around the world.

Once a Boeing plane is in the hands of an airline, however, the company has relatively little control over what happens with its products.

The Jeju Air crash on Sunday, for example, involved a 15-year-old Boeing 737-800. While investigators are still working to determine the exact cause of the accident, experts have previously told Paste BN that incidents involving older aircraft rarely come down to manufacturing defects. Instead, an airline's own maintenance procedures, pilot error, or any number of external factors like weather or bird strikes are usually the more direct cause.

Zach Wichter is a travel reporter for Paste BN based in New York. You can reach him at zwichter@usatoday.com.