Boeing is undergoing a significant leadership shakeup following repeated safety issues with its aircraft and concerns relating to its diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.
Aerospace manufacturer Boeing announced Monday that Dave Calhoun will be stepping down as president and CEO at the end of 2024 and that Board Chair Larry Kellner will not be standing for re-election, as reported by The Dallas Express.
Boeing director Steve Mollenkop will succeed Kellner in his role and help lead the board in selecting a new CEO. Additionally, Stan Deal will be retiring as president and CEO of the company’s Commercial Airplanes unit. Boeing says Deal will be replaced by Stephanie Pope, the company’s current chief operating officer.
The leadership changes come at a difficult time for the company. Over the last few years, Boeing aircraft have been the subject of multiple safety-related issues and federal investigations.
Some of these issues include a windshield cracking, an engine catching fire, a door hatch blowing off, a wing disintegrating, a wheel falling off, and much more, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
“The eyes of the world are on us, and I know that we will come through this moment a better company,” Calhoun said in a letter to employees. “We will remain squarely focused on completing the work we have done together to return our company to stability after the extraordinary challenges of the past five years with safety and quality at the forefront of everything that we do.”
Boeing executives have faced increasing scrutiny over the company’s questionable safety standards, its handling of recent events, and its policies and initiatives toward DEI.
It’s not just Boeing pushing for more DEI within the company; the airline industry as a whole is adopting DEI policies that some claim jeopardize safety.
“I resigned from Boeing because of their DEI indoctrination,” said social media user Kieth M in a post on X. “How about you [at Boeing] stop pushing DEI and pronouns… Stop focusing on indoctrination. The suits need to be fired! #Boeingkills #Boeing #DEIkills If it’s Boeing, I’m not going!” he said.
In 2022, several American Airlines pilots spoke out about the industry’s misguided focus on DEI and its faltering attention to safety.
“If you’re looking for a diverse workforce and not a qualified workforce, you’ve got issues,” an American Airlines pilot reportedly told The Epoch Times. “We’re not putting the best up-front.”
“We have people’s lives in our hands. It’s just like with doctors. If you go to a doctor, you want to go to the best doctor you can,” he explained.
On March 8, Boeing whistleblower John Barnett was found dead in an apparent suicide following a meeting with federal authorities. While suicide was the official narrative, friends of Barnett’s have expressed skepticism over the suicide, claiming he wouldn’t have left his family in such a manner, as reported by The Dallas Express.
Despite being an uncontested titan in the industry, some critics claim that Boeing has lost sight of its objective and mission as a company. This change was highlighted by a social media user @FischerKing64, who detailed precisely how Boeing lost its way.
After attaining “a market-dominant position in the USA following the merger with McDonnell Douglas,” Boeing became “lazy,” the social media user wrote. Boeing then “got new management, which emphasized financial chicanery over top-flight engineering.”
“… The financial geniuses then worked to break the union, shift production away from its trained Seattle workforce to places like South Carolina, and outsource production of most plane components abroad — the American workforce was left to assemble all these disparate parts rather than produce them here,” he explained.
“Software was also outsourced. The end result was lower quality of aircraft, delays in development and production, and even fatalities from crashes,” he added.
The Dallas Express spoke with a Boeing representative in early March about the company’s recent incidents, but the spokesperson placed most of the blame on the airlines. While the spokesperson admitted Boeing had some aging airplanes in operation, he says the airlines are responsible for performing maintenance on the aircraft.