Boeing CEO to step down by end of year

In late March, Boeing President and CEO Dave Calhoun said he would step down by the end of the year. The announcement came amid ongoing bad press over production problems and fallout from a high-profile January incident in which a 4-foot wall panel blew out of a Boeing 737 Max 9 jet cabin in mid-air.

Calhoun joined Boeing as its CEO in 2020 and has led the embattled Arlington County-based Fortune 500 aerospace company and defense contractor through multiple challenges, including the aftermath of two deadly 737 Max crashes off the coast of Indonesia and in Ethiopia, which collectively claimed 346 lives.

In addition to Calhoun’s departure, Boeing Board Chair Larry Kellner did not stand for re-election during the company’s April 18 annual shareholders meeting. The board elected a new independent board chair, Steve Mollenkopf, to succeed Kellner. The former CEO of semiconductor manufacturer Qualcomm, Mollenkopf is leading the board in selecting Boeing’s next CEO.

As part of the management shakeup, Boeing Chief Operating Officer Stephanie Pope was appointed to lead the company’s Boeing Commercial Airplanes business unit, replacing BCA President and CEO Stan Deal, who retired from Boeing effective March 25.

“It has been the greatest privilege of my life to serve Boeing,” Calhoun wrote in a March 25 letter to employees. “The eyes of the world are on us, and I know that we will come through this moment a better company. We will remain squarely focused on completing the work we have done together to return our company to stability after the extraordinary challenges of the past five years, with safety and quality at the forefront of everything that we do.”

In January, terrified Alaska Airlines passengers were exposed to open air at 16,000 feet. Reports followed that the wall panel that blew out was missing bolts, and Alaska Airlines found loose bolts on other Boeing aircraft. The incident is under investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration.

The Justice Department opened a criminal investigation into the incident, and in mid-March, it was announced that the FBI notified passengers of that Alaska Airlines flight that they may be crime victims. Following the blowout, the FAA conducted a six-week examination of the company’s 737 Max jet production process, including 89 product audits. According to The New York Times, Boeing failed 33 of the audits.