Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg Resigns; David Calhoun Named President and CEO

"...It will take more than rearranging the proverbial deck chairs."

"How about rotating the bald tires? Will that work ;)"

Swapping the blown fuses?

So???

Yes, he was allowed to resign instead of being fired. If he didn't resign he was going to be fired.

GE doesn't own Boeing. They have infected the upper management, but they don't own the place.

Hi Matt

Thanks for the response.

The possibility that these are "bean counters" is how I read this move.

As an outsider to Boeing I don't have direct personal observations to go on but from various reports there appears to be a sloppiness in several areas of Boeing's organization. This physical sloppiness is sometimes associated with an enterprise in which "bean counters" put profit above all else.

No proud engineer leaves tools and trash in a finished product. People I worked with would check their tool bag and we would sweep up at the end of the shift. We'd be ashamed if one of our team left his trash behind. The stores clerks used to check that all the issued company tools were returned. So no tools, no trash left behind.

There have been reports that there was knowledge within Boeing the MCAS system was flawed as early as November 2017 but that Boeing would address the flaws in the next update of the software. However even after the second crash there does not appear to have been any urgency within Boeing to do so. (And it doesn't even seem to be just a software issue). A proud company would have started working on a fix once they identified there was a problem. If they were actually working on a fix Boeing should have immediately publicised they were working on this, especially the single AOA input, particularly since the AOA was immediately considered implicated after the first crash. Instead there seems to have been hubris. The attitude seemed to be that it was a foreign operator/pilot/mechanic not anything to do with Boeing itself that was completely at fault.

So far I haven't seen much concern about the ISS supply capsule failure. Instead representatives in the news reports seem to almost be boastful about the fact that it managed to land in one piece. They minimize the fact that the mission failed. The Russians have been successfully landing manned capsules since the 1950s. So there's nothing to be proud about Boeing managing to do it seventy years later. One report implied "only" a timer failed but everything else "worked perfectly". Max 737s also seem to work perfectly unless the port AOA indicator breaks. A truly proud representative would have been ashamed that something as mundane as a "timer" would have let down everything else.

As you said, Boeing is a critically important organization, especially to the military. It can't afford to accept sloppiness, the hubris of "well everything else worked", "its only foreigners, not us" and "its OK to leave tools and trash in the workspace at the end of a shift".

Hopefully the new executives can get the workforce to recognize this.

I agree - too many corporate leaders focus on "shareholder value" instead of what actually creates that value, which is satisfied customers and dedicated employees. If you treat your customers only as a source of revenue, and your employees only as a cost center, you may maximize profit for a year or two, perhaps longer with a product like aircraft with such a long pipeline from development to production. But eventually, your incorrect focus will shine through in shoddy workmanship, lack of innovation, and disgruntled customers. That will kill the shareholder value you were supposedly focused on.

Isn’t a automatic golden parachute built in the contracts for people in his position?

There is an error (usually I get at least two): "than anything Airbus" should be "than anything Boeing" ... apologies for any confusion I may have caused.

Not 3000 but more than 250 and 800 in Ethiopian and Lions case.

In many countries outside the US, that’s not how they hire at all. They do not have a ready made flow through from regional to mainline or legacy carriers. They take a much wider perspective of ex-military, self-funded-0, ab initio , air taxi and LCC pilots. Plus rigorous hiring interviews. Many don’t get in until their third or fourth attempts!
Also, you don’t need buddies on the inside to vouch for you. All comers are treated equally but to the same high standard. Note, I’m not referring specifically to African or Asian airlines but E.U. ones. That being said, Ethiopian is probably the best African airline in terms of training, routes and prestige. And they have many foreign contract pilots flying for them, including American ones.....

They could easily mandate minimum standards before sale...

What is your plan for the used market? And leased leased airplanes?