Boeing CEO to step down amid safety crisis, Virgin Galactic lawsuit - Albuquerque Business First
Dave Calhoun, CEO of The Boeing Co., will step down from his post at the end of 2024 as part of a management shakeup at the Arlington company stemming from a midair panel blowout on one of its passenger jets in January. Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun is set to step down from his position at the end of 2024 as part of a management shakeup at the aerospace and defense giant. This follows a difficult start to the year for the company, which began with a midair panel blowout on one of its passenger jets in January. Board Chair Larry Kellner will not seek reelection and Steve Mollenkopf will succeed him as an independent board chair. Stan Deal, president and CEO of Boeing's commercial airplanes unit, will replace him. Stephanie Pope, currently Boeing’s chief operating officer. Boeing's share price has fallen 25% since the start of the year. The company is also in talks to reacquire Spirit AeroSystems Holdings Inc., a supplier that makes many of the parts for its 737 Max jets.
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Dave Calhoun, CEO of The Boeing Co. (NYSE: BA), will step down from his post at the end of 2024 as part of a management shakeup at the Arlington, Virginia, aerospace and defense giant. The move follows a calamitous start to 2024 for the company, which began with a midair panel blowout on one of its passenger jets in January.
Boeing also said Monday that Board Chair Larry Kellner will not seek reelection this year, and that Steve Mollenkopf will succeed him as an independent board chair. Mollenkopf, a former CEO at Qualcomm Inc. and Boeing board member since 2020, will also lead the board’s process of selecting the company’s next CEO.
Stan Deal, president and CEO of Boeing commercial airplanes unit, is also retiring from the company. Stephanie Pope, currently Boeing’s chief operating officer, will replace him, effective immediately.
"It has been the greatest privilege of my life to serve Boeing," Calhoun, who became CEO in January 2020, wrote in a 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."
Calhoun and Boeing have been under scrutiny since the Jan. 5 blowout, when a door plug ripped off an Alaska Airlines flight when it was thousands of feet in the air. U.S. regulators have forced the company to slow jet production as it works to fix the safety and quality issues.
Boeing’s share price is down 25% since the start of the year, closing trading Friday at $188.85. Its shares are up more than 3.5% in premarket trading Monday following news of the C-suite shakeup. In late-January, the company suspended earnings guidance as it worked to overcome the safety issues.
Boeing is currently in talks to reacquire Spirit AeroSystems Holdings Inc., a supplier that makes many of the parts for its popular 737 Max jets, including door panels like the one that blew out in midair earlier this year.
Last week, major airline chiefs were said to be lining up discussions with Kellner to discuss their concerns over the company’s ongoing production issues under Calhoun, according to Reuters.
January's midair panel blowout came shortly before Boeing announced a $5 million expansion for a new 27,000-square-foot manufacturing facility in Albuquerque. The company employs over 150 people in Albuquerque, Ron Dauk, program manager at Boeing Directed Energy Systems, said at a mid-January ribbon-cutting ceremony at its Albuquerque site in the The 25 Way, near Jefferson St. NE and Interstate 25.
It could hire more than two dozen more people to staff the expanded manufacturing facility, used for the production of different types of weapons systems. The company has seven jobs in Albuquerque currently listed on its website.
More recently, Boeing filed a suit against another company with extensive operations in New Mexico, Virgin Galactic, alleging the space tourism company stole trade secrets and has failed to pay $25 million to Aurora Flight Sciences Corp., a Boeing subsidiary, for work on a new Virgin Galactic "mothership."
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court of Alexandria, Virginia, on March 21, stems from a contract Virgin Galactic signed with Aurora in February 2022. Boeing and Aurora, the plaintiffs in the suit, allege Virgin Galactic didn't deliver on its contractual obligations and refused to pay Aurora more than $25 million for its work under the contract.
The plaintiffs also allege Virgin Galactic "misappropriated" two sets of Boeing and Aurora's trade secrets involving proprietary equations and test data.
Virgin Galactic, the anchor tenant at New Mexico's Spaceport America since December 2008, said in a statement: "We believe this lawsuit is wrong on the facts and the law, and we will vigorously defend ourselves in the appropriate forum."
Topik: Lawsuits, Business Leaders, Aviation, Airlines, Space