Boeing to pause 737 production for quality stand down on Thursday

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Boeing will hold a quality stand down Thursday at the Seattle-area location where it makes 737 aircraft, pausing production and delivery operations for a day, the company announced on Tuesday.

During the stand down, employees will attend quality workshops and "pause, evaluate what we're doing, how we're doing it and make recommendations for improvement," said Boeing Commercial Airplanes President Stan Deal.

The first stand down will occur at the Renton, Washington-area factory where the 737 is built. All other Boeing commercial production facilities and fabrication sites will have stand downs over the next few weeks, Boeing said.

Boeing announced it would hold sessions with workers on Jan. 16 as part of a larger list of actions it is taking after the grounding of a portion of the 737 MAX 9 fleet earlier this month following a mid-air cabin panel blowout on an Alaska Airlines jet.

(Reporting by Valerie Insinna; Editing by Chris Reese and Jamie Freed)