Boeing’s new CEO is endeavoring to turn the company around, beginning by building a closer relationship with factory workers.
Kelly Ortberg took over the role on August 8 and spent his first day at the firm’s 737 Max factory in Renton, Washington.
His first week also involved a trip to Wichita, Kansas, where he visited Spirit AeroSystems — the supplier Boeing last month agreed to repurchase for $4.7 billion.
These moves signal Ortberg’s intent to revamp Boeing’s production processes and quality control, which have marred the planemaker’s reputation in recent years.
His predecessor, Dave Calhoun, was the second consecutive Boeing CEO due to a 737 Max crisis.
Last month, Boeing agreed to plead guilty to a charge of fraud conspiracy that was brought in relation to the 737 Max crashes in which 346 people died in 2018 and 2019.
The 737 Max, Boeing’s flagship narrowbody jet, was grounded for 20 months — the longest grounding in history for a US airliner. Then-CEO Dennis Muilenburg was fired in 2019.
Calhoun also had to contend with Max issues when a door plug came off an Alaska Airlines 737 Max in January. In its preliminary report, the National Transportation Safety Board said the plane — delivered just 66 days earlier — left Boeing’s factory missing key bolts designed to secure the door plug.
By appointing Ortberg, an aviation veteran with an engineering background, Boeing signaled that it would prioritize safety over profit. Calhoun, by contrast, had a background in finance.
After announcing his resignation in March, Calhoun said Boeing needed to “slow down” as it had a “bad habit” of being too focused on the speed of production.
Ortberg plans to be based in Seattle, where Boeing was founded in 1916 and where it had its headquarters for over 80 years.
The planemaker moved its corporate headquarters to Chicago in 2001, and then to Virginia in 2022. That distance between Boeing’s leadership and its factories has been criticized as the firm faced quality-control problems like in January’s blowout.
In February, a Federal Aviation Administration investigation found “a disconnect between Boeing’s senior management and other members of the organization on safety culture.”
Later that month, The Seattle Times reported that Boeing’s board shut down a shareholder’s bid to move its headquarters back to Seattle.
“Because what we do is complex, I firmly believe that we need to get closer to the production lines and development programs across the company,” Ortberg told employees last Thursday.
“Soon I’ll be visiting many of our sites and I look forward to meeting with teammates around the world,” he added.
There is still a way to go for Boeing to regain the trust of customers and officials. But with less than a week in charge, Ortberg has already started directing the planemaker down a new path.
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