Boeing CEO Bows Out

This feels as if it’s been a long time coming, though in reality it probably wasn’t. After Boeing has faced one public relations disaster after another and multiple lawsuits over safety and manufacturing failures with its 737 Max airline series (and a few other models as well), CEO Dave Calhoun has announced that he will be stepping down. The resignation isn’t taking effect immediately, however. He will remain until the end of the year while the company launches a search for his replacement. Boeing’s chairman is also stepping down from the board of directors, though he will remain with the organization. With some of their planes literally falling apart in the air, not to mention the mysterious “suicide” of a whistleblower who had complained about safety and production standards at Boeing’s manufacturing plants, the pressure had apparently become too much and the company appears to be attempting to demonstrate that they are taking the issue seriously. (NY Post)

Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun will leave his post at the end of the year and the company’s chairman of the board will step down this spring as the aerospace company reels from increased scrutiny from regulators in the wake of near-disasters including a door blowout in mid-flight earlier this year.

The company’s chairman, Larry Kellner, is stepping down from the board of directors in May while Stan Deal, president and CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, is resigning effective immediately, according to reports.

Steve Mollenkopf, former CEO of tech giant Qualcomm, will be Boeing’s new board chairman, succeeding Kellner.

The pressure on Boeing to take some sort of action had been coming on multiple fronts. Last week, the CEOs of several airlines had requested a meeting with Boeing’s board to “express concerns” over the company’s safety and production issues. The airlines have been taking a black eye as well, with some facing their own lawsuits brought by distraught flyers. 

The news of the impending changes seemed to be well-received on Wall Street initially. Boeing’s stock had plunged 25% this year, but on Monday it rebounded slightly. This may provide some relief to Boeing’s shareholders who have clearly also been unhappy. 

What remains to be seen is whether or not changes at the top will lead to meaningful changes on the production floor. Whoever takes charge will still be under enormous pressure to get planes out the door and into service as quickly as possible lest they start losing customers and missing their sales targets. According to the whistleblowers, that pressure is what drove the sloppy performance in the production and quality control departments. The now-deceased whistleblower John Barnett testified that after he raised issues of production quality and safety, rather than addressing those issues, management launched a campaign of gaslighting and harassment against him. 

In any event, changes are clearly required. While there thankfully haven’t been any crashes or fatalities in recent years, they’ve come terrifyingly close. Video has been released of a wheel literally falling off of one of Boeing’s planes during takeoff and destroying a car in the parking lot below. Thankfully nobody was in the car at the time.

Another plane was found to have an entire panel missing from its exterior when it landed. They say an investigation is underway, but at this point, the airline isn’t sure whether the panel fell off during the flight or if it was already missing when they took off. That’s probably more the fault of the maintenance crew at the airport than Boeing, but it’s disturbing nonetheless. None of this is normal and the industry badly needs to restore the faith of the flying public if they ever hope to return to business as usual.