Troubled planemaker Boeing announced on Monday that its CEO, Dave Calhoun, would step down from his role at the end of 2024. This is part of a broad management shakeup after a series of mishaps at one of America’s most storied manufacturers.
Board Chair Larry Kellner has also told the company he doesn’t plan to stand for reelection. Boeing board member and former Qualcomm CEO Steve Mollenkopf will succeed Kellner.
The company also said that Stan Deal, Boeing Commercial Airplanes President and CEO, would retire and Stephanie Pope would lead that business.
The leadership change caps weeks of turmoil at Boeing after the mid-air incident involving an Alaska Airlines-operated Max 9 jet carrying 171 passengers turned into a full-blown safety and reputational crisis for the iconic planemaker.
The company is facing heavy regulatory scrutiny, and U.S. authorities have curtailed production while it attempts to fix safety and quality issues. The company is in talks to buy its former subsidiary, Spirit AeroSystems, to try to gain more control over its supply chain.
Last week, a group of U.S. airline CEOs sought meetings with Boeing directors without Calhoun to express concern over the Alaska Airlines 737 Max 9 accident, saying it was an unusual sign of frustration with the manufacturer’s problems and Calhoun.
Calhoun, an industrial veteran who has held top positions at several troubled companies, was given the CEO role in January 2020 with the mandate of steering the planemaker through a series of crises emanating from the two Max crashes and a pandemic-led slump in demand for new jets.
Following the latest incident, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) curbed Boeing production to a rate of 38 jets per month, but CFO Brian West said last week it had not even reached that figure.
Since Calhoun took the reins, the company has endured ongoing production delays. Still, in October, Calhoun was upbeat about how fast Boeing could raise the output of its Max jets, saying Boeing would get back to 38 jets a month and was “anxious to build from there as fast as we can.”
But weeks after the mid-air cabin panel blowout in January, Calhoun said it’s time to “go slow to go fast.”
The company’s crisis has frustrated airlines already struggling with delivery delays from both Boeing and its rival Airbus, and the planemaker has been burning more cash than expected in this quarter than expected.
“For years, we prioritized the movement of the airplane through the factory over getting it done right, and that’s got to change,” West said last week.
The company’s main rival, Airbus, recently clinched orders for 65 jets from two of Boeing’s key Asian customers, in what some saw as a sign of executives’ concerns about Boeing.
Boeing shares were up 2.8% in premarket trading on the news.
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