Embattled aircraft manufacturer Boeing has announced a major shake-up to its management structure.
On Monday, CEO Dave Calhoun announced that he will step down at the end of the year. Chair Larry Kellner will not stand for re-election, the company added in a statement, and the leader of its commercial planes division, Stan Deal, will retire immediately.
The announcement comes amid a period of mounting turbulence for Boeing, which has faced increasingly intense scrutiny after a series of incidents that called the safety of its aircraft into question.
A recent incident occurred on 5 January, when a fuselage panel on a Boeing 737 MAX 9 Alaska Airlines jet . Bolts used to help keep the panel in place were missing after repair work at the Boeing factory, according to investigators.
A few years earlier, in 2018 and 2019, two Boeing 737 MAX planes crashed in a pair of incidents that left 346 people dead and prompted aviation regulators and airlines around the world to ground the company’s entire 737 MAX fleet.
The string of incidents, all occurring within the space of five-and-a-half years, has raised concerns among some experts.
How did we get here?
Zena Assaad is a senior lecturer at the Australian National University and an expert in the safety and assurance of emerging technologies, with a focus on aviation.
She told SBS News that when she heard about the Alaska Airlines incident in January, she was "not surprised, just disappointed".
Assaad said that although the aviation industry has a reputation for being overly conservative at times, meeting regulations is extremely costly and time-consuming, and it appears to her as though Boeing may have taken shortcuts.
"My theory — and this is just a theory, I need to stress this — but it looks to me like corners have been cut [at Boeing]."
Greg Bamber, an aviation expert and professor at Monash University, similarly suggested that Boeing's mounting safety issues are the result of a system that prioritises money over all else.
"These safety concerns reflect a recent culture at Boeing that was in practice prioritising profit maximisation rather than people, safety, manufacturing quality and technical excellence," Bamber told SBS News.
Concerns have also been raised by others previously. In 2019, the New York Times published claims from several who said its manufacturing process prioritised speed over public safety. At the time, a Boeing spokesperson told the US Newspapers safety issues were "immediately investigated" and "changes are made wherever necessary".
More recently, the United States' Federal Aviation Administration found dozens of problems in Boeing's 737 Max manufacturing process, and at a key subcontractor, according to a New York Times report earlier this month. The examination came in the wake of the Alaska Airlines incident.
In a letter to employees on Monday, Calhoun described the incident as a "watershed moment for Boeing" that would see it "emerge as a better company".
“We must continue to respond to this accident with humility and complete transparency," he wrote. "We also must inculcate a total commitment to safety and quality at every level of our company."
However, not all experts are as concerned.
Writing for The Conversation following an incident where that injured some passengers, Professor Doug Drury, head of aviation at CQUniversity Australia, said not all problems could be blamed on Boeing.
"Five incidents occurred on aircraft owned and operated by United Airlines and were related to factors outside the manufacturer’s control, like maintenance issues, potential foreign object debris, and possible human error," he wrote.
He wrote, "air travel is still extremely safe, and that includes Boeing".
Alaska Airlines grounded its fleet of Boeing 737 MAX 9 planes after part of a fuselage blew off during a flight. Source: Getty / Stephen Brashear
Is a change of leadership enough to save Boeing?
Formerly the world's number one airline manufacturer, Boeing has been overtaken in recent years by its main competitor, Airbus.
In January, Airbus reported record annual jet orders and confirmed an 11 per cent rise in 2023 deliveries, maintaining the top manufacturing spot against Boeing for the fifth consecutive year.
The last time Boeing held the top spot was in 2018, around the time its recent string of catastrophes began. Even before the Alaska Airlines incident, the company was struggling to repair its reputation.
Dave Calhoun became Boeing's chief executive in 2020, in the aftermath of two 737 MAX aeroplane crashes in which hundreds of people were killed. Source: Getty / NurPhoto
His tenure was challenged by the effects of the MAX grounding, and the severe industry downturn due to Covid-19 that was quickly followed by a frenzy of new orders from airlines facing surging post-pandemic travel demand -- with the flood of orders straining the industry's supply chains.
He insisted that he decided to step down, adding that he wanted to stay until the end of the year to address quality issues within the company.
Steve Mollenkopf, former chief executive of semiconductor manufacturer Qualcomm, will serve as Boeing's new chair. Deal, the former leader of the company's commercial division, will be replaced by long-time Boeing executive Stephanie Pope.
The leadership changes were praised by Ryanair chief executive Michael O'Leary as "much needed", as the Irish carrier pointed to delayed new aircraft deliveries as a drag on the company's prospects.
Other experts, however, predict that the company’s headwinds are far from over.
Michel Merluzeau, an aeronautics specialist with consulting firm AIR said that while there is a need for "fresh enterprise leadership" at the top, "the urgency lies primarily on the factory floor".
Susannah Streeter of financial services company Hargreaves Lansdown said Boeing "has been left largely rudderless", and that whoever is recruited as the next CEO "will have a mountain to climb in terms of enacting culture change in the organisation and restoring the company's safety credentials."
Assaad, meanwhile, suggested that to address the systemic issues beleaguering Boeing, the company must establish complete transparency between itself and "whatever regulator is responsible for meeting their standards" while bringing in an independent third party to oversee quality control.
SBS News has contacted Boeing for comment.
