Boeing still struggling to make its best-selling jet - 737 MAX

SINCE A CRIPPLING strike at many of Boeing's US plane factories ended more than a month ago, progress ramping up production of its best-selling 737 MAX jet has been deliberately slow.

- ALLISON LAMPERT & DAN CATCHPOLE

Safety inspectors inside the 737 MAX factory outside Seattle laboriously scoured half-constructed planes for flaws they may have missed during the seven-week work stoppage.

Other workers poured over manuals to restore their expired safety licenses. The factory was initially so lifeless in mid-November that one employee left early because the bins of fasteners he was tasked with replenishing weren't being used, according to a source inside the plant. The result: no new 737 MAX plane has been completed.

Boeing said on Tuesday that it had restarted MAX production last week, as first reported by Reuters.