Boeing Co. executives seem to be about the only ones who don’t think the company has a culture problem.

Some 171 of the company’s 737 Max 9 jets remain grounded while the Federal Aviation Administration assesses how an auxiliary exit door that was meant to be sealed shut blew open on an Alaska Airlines flight. While Boeing Chief Executive Officer Dave Calhoun has committed to full transparency so that such safety incidents “can never happen again” and has acknowledged the company’s “mistake” on the Max, he has framed the issue as a serious but isolated quality oversight rather than a symptom of deeper-rooted problems. The company’s customers have a different opinion: “I’m disappointed that the manufacturing challenges do keep happening at Boeing. This isn’t new,” United Airlines Holdings Inc. CEO Scott Kirby said Tuesday in an interview on CNBC. “My own assessment is that this goes all the way back to the McDonnell Douglas merger, and it started a change in culture.”

Boeing acquired St. Louis, Missouri-based McDonnell Douglas Corp. in 1997 for about $16.3 billion, having purchased the aerospace and defense business of the former Rockwell International Corp. the previous year. The acquisitions effectively created the plane manufacturing duopoly that has persisted to this day, with Airbus SE serving as Boeing’s only true competitor. For many former Boeing employees, the McDonnell Douglas deal marked the beginning of the end for the company’s vaunted engineering culture as managers promoted from the smaller company ushered in an overly myopic focus on the bottom line. Others say the cultural shift was sealed in 2001, when Boeing decided to move its headquarters to Chicago, away from the Seattle-area factories responsible for churning out its airplanes.

QOSHE - Boeing’s Culture Needs an Overhaul. Take It From Its Customers. - Brooke Sutherland
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Boeing’s Culture Needs an Overhaul. Take It From Its Customers.

10 1
24.01.2024

Boeing Co. executives seem to be about the only ones who don’t think the company has a culture problem.

Some 171 of the company’s 737 Max 9 jets remain grounded while the Federal Aviation Administration assesses how an auxiliary exit door that was meant to be sealed shut blew open on an Alaska Airlines flight. While Boeing Chief Executive Officer Dave Calhoun has committed to full transparency so that such safety incidents “can never........

© Bloomberg


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