The turmoil at the top of Boeing this week underscores the extent to which the aircraft manufacturer’s quality control issues have the potential to destabilise the entire commercial aviation industry.

This week Boeing’s chairman said he wouldn’t stand for re-election at Boeing’s upcoming annual meeting, its chief executive said he would depart at the end of the year and the head of the division that makes its commercial jetliners retired with immediate effect.

Airline CEOs are adamant that Boeing prioritise improving its quality control over any attempt to accelerate production.Credit: AP

While the CEO Dave Calhoun, a former chairman who took on the CEO role after the 2018 and 2019 crashes of Boeing Max 8 aircraft that claimed nearly 350 lives, said he would hang around until the end of the year, there’s already pressure from the company’s airline customers for more urgent change.

With the US Federal Aviation Administration already capping its production, a massive and growing backlog of orders and continuing quality control issues and safety incidents that have further slowed its production, Boeing’s plight is not just threatening its own financial condition – it expects net cash outflows of $US4 billion ($6.1 billion) to $US4.5 billion in the first quarter of this year – but is disrupting the entire industry.

While Boeing lost its mantle as the world’s largest commercial aircraft manufacturer to Airbus some years ago and the gap continues to widen, the two companies dominate commercial aircraft production. The industry will be – and is being – impaired by the problems within Boeing.

Already airlines in the US and Europe are having to revise their schedules to reflect smaller-than-planned fleets because of Boeing’s inability to deliver as promised. That’s against a backdrop of a continuing strong increase in demand for travel and new industry capacity in the post-pandemic environment.

That, in turn, will flow through, and is flowing through, to higher airfares as capacity is tightening relative to demand and – with the prospect of Boeing delivering the next generation of more fuel-efficient jets receding into the distance – more pressure on airlines’ costs in future.

Airlines from Ryanair to United, Qantas to Virgin, are having to re-think plans for their fleets, with Boeing’s delivery schedules now being stretched out considerably and having a significant question mark over them.