Washington: Boeing has announced that it was temporarily cutting production of its best-selling 737 Max airliner as the company works to return the plane to flight following the aircraft's fall-out from crashes in Ethiopia and Indonesia in the span of about five months.

"We have decided to temporarily move from a production rate of 52 airplanes per month to 42 airplanes per month starting in mid-April," CNN quoted CEO Dennis Muilenburg as saying in a statement on Friday.