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Things are flowing more efficiently, you know? We've stopped pushing work down the production line. This is what Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg has been waiting for. Increasing production of the 737 Max, the company's most popular plane. We are ready. We went through a pretty exhaustive effort to get ready and test the system. As you mentioned, we're just now moving from 42 to 47 here in Renton. The Max and questions surrounding its quality and safety have weighed on Boeing's stock since late 2017 and early 2018, when two Max crashes killed 346 people after hitting an all time high of $430 in March of 2019, Boeing shares plunged.
The Max was grounded. Investigators found software with the plane's flight control was to blame. Congressional hearings exposed flaws in Boeing's leadership and culture. You're the CEO. The buck stops with you. Did you read this document and how did your team not put it in front of you? Run in with their hair on fire saying, we got a real problem here. Those pilots never had a chance. These loved ones never had a chance. They were in flying coffins. I would walk before I was to get on a 737 max, I would walk. There's no way. And eventually CEO Dennis Muilenburg was fired after
board member Dave Calhoun as the new CEO. Changes to the Max flight control systems got production and deliveries restarted, and from 2020 to 2023, Boeing steadily raised Max production until early 2024, when a door plug on an Alaska Airlines Max blew out in flight just a few weeks after Boeing delivered it to Alaska Airlines. Alaska Airlines received an aircraft off the production line with a faulty door plug. And we're going to hold Boeing accountable for that. The door plug incident led to CEO Dave Calhoun stepping down and admitting Boeing had to fix how it builds the max. When you do work out of a position, the message you send to your people is, um, and maybe that work was moved because of a shortage.
Maybe it was because you're trying to fix something that was non-conforming, but when you move it down the line, it sends a message to your own people that, wow, I guess the movement of the airplane is more important than the first time quality of the product. A few months later, Kelly Ortberg took over. So how did Ortberg and the Boeing team rebuild max production? By going back to basics, focusing on quality over speed. Each employee in Renton, as an example, worked six hour shifts, three shifts per employee, three shifts all around. Each employee does 2 to 3 tasks. That means you're very focused and very good on the task you're doing per shift.
And I think that repeat repeatability creates the efficiency that Boeing wants. The pace of the 737 Max production is capped by the FAA, which wants to ensure Boeing is meeting key metrics when it comes to quality. I'm not nervous. I don't think we'll lose our way this time. I feel really great about how we're progressing. It's going to be hard and we're going to have bumps, but I'm seeing now as we're, you know, ramping up that we when we need to slow down, we slow down. Before it was just like, nope, we got to keep going. I know that once you start delivering airplanes, reliable airplanes, again, that makes a big difference. That boosts everyone that goes away.
You feel it and it just adds to the confidence. We are all cautiously optimistic. It's not something that we're going into with a ton of confidence. Like we've got this, we've done this before, even though we have done it before. Um, I think everyone is cautiously optimistic. Emphasis on the cautiously. After the door plug blowout. Monthly production was limited to 38 Maxs rising to 42 last year and now to 47 with 52 as a target for sometime next year and a long range goal of 63. But we won't do that until the production system is stable, and if it's not stable, we'll stay at the current rate and do what we have to do to get to stability.
One of the keys to growing max production will be adding another final assembly line here at Boeing's plant in Everett, Washington. The tooling is already in place, setting the stage for max production to eventually hit 52 per month. What gives us greater comfort is that there's really a renewed focus on quality and making sure that rate ramps only happen when there is stability, with the existing production system. Boosting max production from 47 to 63 planes per month will take time, and Ortberg knows, getting there quickly is not as important as getting there, because the supply chain and workers can do it right.
We're trying to reset that track record, and I think we've done a good job as we've come back up here the last 18 months and increased rate, and we've done it differently. We've made sure that we're not moving until the production system is stable. We're not pushing work down the production line like we were before.
