Boeing is replacing its CEO, Dennis Muilenburg, and named Greg Smith as the interim CEO until Jan. 13 when David Calhoun will take over, according to the firm in a Monday morning statement.
Boeing said in a statement that its board of directors “decided that a change in leadership was necessary to restore confidence in the company moving forward as it works to repair relationships with regulators, customers, and all other stakeholders.”
“Under the Company’s new leadership, Boeing will operate with a renewed commitment to full transparency, including effective and proactive communication with the FAA, other global regulators and its customers,” the statement added.
The company said that Muilenburg resigned while some reports said he was fired.
Lawrence Kellner will become the chairman of the board after Jan. 13.
“On behalf of the entire Board of Directors, I am pleased that Dave has agreed to lead Boeing at this critical juncture,” Kellner said before adding: “Dave has deep industry experience and a proven track record of strong leadership, and he recognizes the challenges we must confront. The Board and I look forward to working with him and the rest of the Boeing team to ensure that today marks a new way forward for our company.”
Calhoun, in a statement, said that he “strongly believ[es] in the future of Boeing and the 737 MAX” and is “honored to lead this great company and the 150,000 dedicated employees who are working hard to create the future of aviation.”
The leadership changes come as Boeing struggles with the fallout of its move to suspend production of its best-selling 737 MAX model from January, the plane maker’s biggest assembly-line halt in more than 20 years, as repercussions from two deadly crashes drag into 2020.
Boeing earlier this month said that it was freezing 737 production in January as the fallout from the two crashes, one in Indonesia and another in Ethiopia that killed a total 346 people, drags on.
“With the MAX return to service date still unknown, pushing our timeline back to early June is what is best for our customers and our operation. By moving the return to service date back more than just a month—as we have done previously throughout 2019—it allows us to have more certainty by providing our customers and our operation a firmer and more definitive timeline,” United spokesman Frank Benenati said on Dec. 20.
The Boeing Max crisis has negatively impacted the U.S. economy, analysts have said.
The crisis “led to a 20 percent cutback in production, accounting for much of this year’s national manufacturing slump and shaving approximately half a percentage point from GDP growth in the second quarter,” Jim Glassman, head economist for JPMorgan Chase’s commercial banking operation, wrote in September.
Reuters contributed to this report.
From The Epoch Times
