Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun speaks to reporters as he departs from a gathering on the office of Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) on Capitol Hill January 24, 2024 in Washington, DC.Â
Anna Moneymaker | Getty Images
Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun will step down at the tip of 2024 partly of a broad management shake-up for the embattled aerospace giant.
Larry Kellner, chairman of the board, can be resigning and won’t stand for reelection at Boeing’s annual meeting in May. He will likely be succeeded as chair by Steve Mollenkopf, who has been a Boeing director since 2020 and is a former CEO of Qualcomm. Mollenkopf will lead the board in picking a recent CEO, Boeing said.
And Stan Deal, president and CEO of Boeing Industrial Airplanes, is leaving the corporate effective immediately. Moving into his job is Stephanie Pope, who recently became Boeing’s chief operating officer after previously running Boeing Global Services.
The departures come as airlines and regulators have been increasing calls for major changes at the corporate after a number of quality and manufacturing flaws on Boeing planes. Scrutiny intensified after a Jan. 5 accident, when a door plug blew out of a virtually recent Boeing 737 Max 9 minutes into an Alaska Airlines flight.
“As you all know, the Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 accident was a watershed moment for Boeing,” Calhoun wrote to employees on Monday. “We must proceed to reply to this accident with humility and complete transparency. We also must inculcate a complete commitment to safety and quality at every level of our company.
“The eyes of the world are on us, and I do know we’ll come through this moment a greater company, constructing on all of the learnings we collected as we worked together to rebuild Boeing over the past variety of years,” he wrote.
Calhoun told CNBC in an interview Monday that the choice to resign was “100%” his own.
“We’ve got one other mountain to climb,” Calhoun said. “Let’s not avoid the decision for motion. Let’s not avoid the changes that now we have to make in our factory. Let’s not avoid the necessity to decelerate a bit and let the provision chain catch up.”
Calhoun was appointed to the highest job in late 2019 and took the helm at Boeing in early 2020 after the corporate ousted its previous chief executive, Dennis Muilenburg, for his handling of the aftermath of two deadly 737 Max crashes.
For months Calhoun has promised investors, airline customers and most people that Boeing will get its myriad quality struggles under control. The Federal Aviation Administration has stepped up oversight of Boeing, and agency Administrator Mike Whitaker after the Alaska Airlines accident said Boeing will likely be barred from increasing 737 production until the FAA is satisfied with the corporate’s quality control.
Boeing’s production problems have delayed deliveries of recent planes to customers and hampered growth plans. CEOs of among the company’s largest customers, including United Airlines, Southwest Airlines and American Airlines have publicly complained in regards to the delays.
Ryanair, Boeing’s largest airline customer in Europe, said in a press release Monday it welcomes the management changes.
“Stan Deal has done an amazing sales job for Boeing for a few years, but he is not the person to show across the operation in Seattle, and that is where a lot of the problems have been in recent times,” Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary said in a video posted to social media platform X.
United’s CEO, Scott Kirby, earlier this month said he urged Boeing to stop making yet-to-be-certified Max 10 planes for the corporate since it wasn’t clear when the FAA would clear those aircraft to fly.
Last week, airline CEOs began scheduling meetings with Boeing directors to voice their displeasure at the dearth of producing quality control and lower-than-expected production of 737 Max planes. The meetings were to incorporate Kellner and a number of other board members.
Also last week, Boeing Chief Financial Officer Brian West said at an industry conference that Boeing would burn extra cash than expected due to limited 737 Max production.
Boeing’s stock was up lower than 1% in early trading on Monday after Calhoun’s announcement. The shares are down 26% thus far this yr.
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