Boeing Co is replacing the head of its commercial-airplanes division as it struggles with a crisis created by two deadly crashes of its newest airliner.
Boeing on Tuesday said that Kevin McAllister is out as chief executive of Boeing Commercial Airplanes. He is being replaced by Stanley Deal, leader of Boeing’s services division.
The shake-up in Boeing’s top ranks comes just days after the release of internal communications that showed a senior test pilot experienced serious problems while testing flight-control software for the 737 MAX on a simulator.
Photo: Reuters
That software, called the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS), is at the center of investigations into two crashes that killed 346 people and led to grounding of the MAX.
Boeing is taking much longer than executives expected to change the software and get the plane flying again.
The company announced two other promotions, including a replacement for Deal, who has led Boeing Global Services since the division was created in 2016.
McAllister was recruited from General Electric Co’s jet-engine operation to run Boeing’s biggest division in 2016, just months before the 737 MAX went into service.
Boeing did not specify whether he quit or was fired.
“The Boeing board fully supports these leadership moves,” chairman David Calhoun said in a prepared statement.
Calhoun himself is new in his position.
Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg also served as company chairman until the board stripped him of that job and elevated Calhoun two weeks ago.
Boeing took a US$5.6 billion pretax charge this summer to cover its estimate for compensating airlines that have canceled thousands of flights because of grounded planes.
It has disclosed nearly US$3 billion in other additional costs related to the grounding.
The company faces dozens of lawsuits by families of passengers killed in the MAX crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia. It is also the subject of investigations by the US Department of Justice and Congress.
S&P Global Ratings on Tuesday downgraded the outlook for Boeing, citing concerns the aerospace giant may have misled regulators about the 737 MAX.
The ratings firm kept the debt grade stable at “A,” but cut the outlook to negative from stable on the potential for “lasting damage” to the company’s finances.
“The outlook revision reflects concerns that recent reports that Boeing may have misled the [US] FAA [Federal Aviation Administration] about the problems with the 737 MAX MCAS software that likely caused two accidents could have wide-ranging effects on the company’s competitive and financial positions,” S&P said in a statement.
Additional reporting by AFP
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last