Everett Boeing factory tour offers a birds-eye view of jet-making

Published 11:30 am Saturday, December 27, 2025

EVERETT — There are only three places in the world to see large commercial planes being built: the Boeing plant in Everett and the two Airbus plants in Toulouse, France.

Since I wasn’t planning a European vacation, traveling 19 miles from my home in North Seattle to Everett was the obvious choice to get my aviation fix.

I am glad I went, but for $42 a person, the Boeing factory tour could offer more.

If you live in or are visiting Western Washington, taking the Boeing tour is a no-brainer, just for the opportunity to view the largest building by volume on earth, a sprawling 472-million-cubic-feet structure that covers nearly 99 acres. How often do you get to step inside an 11-story high factory!

Here, more than 30,000 workers are on the job in a 24-hour city with its own restaurants, fire department and banks.

The majesty of it is spectacular, a peek inside the building, past the massive exterior hangar doors.

Just don’t expect a close-up view of the plane manufacturing process.

The Boeing tour takes you to a factory observation deck where, on a recent visit, we watched workers install two sections on a Boeing 777X, scheduled to be delivered to Qatar Airlines at some future date.

Manufacturing issues have delayed the widebody jet’s introduction. Boeing hopes to deliver the first planes in 2027. The original date was 2019.

I didn’t expect my Boeing tour guides to offer a history of the plane’s production issues. But it would have been great to learn more about the manufacturing process.

The problem is that the observation deck is about 100 feet from the actual work stations, so it was hard to see what was actually going on, despite the tour guide’s commentary. The aft (back) and forward sections of the fuselage were split in two, a unique sight in itself, as workers added various components.

Binoculars would have helped, but they, along with cameras or cell phones, aren’t allowed on the tour. Lockers are provided.

And while the tour can last as long as 80 minutes, we were on the observation deck for no more than 20 minutes. The rest of the time was spent on a bus between the Boeing Future of Flight museum, where the tour starts, and walking through an underground tunnel and up several flights of stairs to the factory observation deck.

Part of the problem is that the Boeing campus has around 200 buildings and some of the manufacturing processes take place in those buildings. We were told about the spray painting process — it takes a week to spray paint a plane — but there was no access to seeing this colorful process.

The tour doesn’t include viewing the area where the fuselage is manufactured or show how a 777X innovation, the plane’s 11-foot folding wingtips, are built.

We did learn that Boeing isn’t to blame for crowded coach conditions. The jet maker provides the shell of the plane, and it’s up to the individual airline to determine the seating configurations and choose a subcontractor to install it, according to the tour guide. It would have been interesting to see that portion of the plant where the seats are installed.

When I lived in San Antonio, Texas, I took the Toyota tour.

Perhaps car manufacturing plants are simpler, but the Toyota tour was more informative. Small vans took visitors through the plant to view the full manufacturing process for the Toyota Tundra. We saw robots and humans installing doors and seats. We saw how an automobile is put together.

More in-depth tour options at the Everett Boeing campus could amp up the experience.

At the end of the tour, a bus takes visitors back to the starting point, the Boeing Future of Flight museum and gift shop. The tour includes admission to the museum. Featured exhibits include a full-scale mock-up of the Boeing-built Destiny Module, the primary research lab for U.S. payloads sent to the International Space Station, and prototypes from Boeing’s Wisk Aero subsidiary of a yellow four-seat electric autonomous air taxi.

The museum also offers an observation deck, a highlight for aviation buffs like me. Boeing test flights can be seen taking off and landing on the runway. Couches offer a relaxed view of the Boeing plant and the Cascade Mountains.

Randy Diamond: 425-339-3097; randy.diamond@heraldnet.com.

IF YOU GO

Boeing Everett Factory Tour: Book tickets in advance online at: boeingfutureofflight.com/tour or by calling 1-800-464-1476

The Boeing Future of Flight museum, 8415 Paine Field Blvd., Mukilteo, can be viewed separately, without the Boeing plant tour, for $14 a person. Youth 6-15 are $7. Age five and under are free. Parents say the museum offers kids a hands-on introduction to aviation. Both the tour and museum are open every day.

This story originally appeared in Sound & Summit magazine, The Daily Herald’s quarterly publication. Explore Snohomish and Island counties with each issue. Subscribe and receive four issues for $18. Call 425-339-3200 or go to soundsummitmagazine.com