Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun resigns

new york
CNN
—

In a major shakeup at Boeing’s leadership, Chief Executive Officer Dave Calhoun said Monday that he intends to step down from the beleaguered company by the end of the year. The company’s chairman and head of civil aviation will also step down.

Boeing Chairman Larry Kellner will not run for re-election to the board. The board of directors selected former Qualcomm CEO Steve Mollenkopf to succeed him.

The company also announced that Stan Diehl, CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, will be retiring. Stephanie Pope, who has been Boeing’s chief operating officer since January, will take over immediately.

For more than five years, Boeing has been plagued by problems with its aircraft, including two fatal 737 Max crashes in 2018 and 2019 that killed 346 people, and recently a door plug blown off the side of an Alaska Airlines 737 Max. I’ve been troubled. In January, a large hole appeared in the side of the plane. The issue resulted in multiple citations for safety issues and cumulative losses of more than $31 billion.

In a letter to Boeing employees Monday, Calhoun called the Alaska Airlines disaster “a turning point for Boeing.”

“The world’s eyes are on us,” he said in announcing his plans to retire. “We intend to fix what has gone wrong and put the company back on track for recovery and stability.”

Calhoun, 66, a longtime Boeing Co. director, became chairman of the company in late 2019 when the board stripped his predecessor, Dennis Muilenburg, of the title. After Muilenburg was fired in December of the same year, he was selected as CEO and assumed the position in January 2020.

Mr. Calhoun’s tenure began about halfway through a 20-month grounding of the 737 Max due to a design flaw that was found to have caused two crashes. And it came just before the global coronavirus pandemic brought air travel to a near standstill and caused huge losses for the airlines that rely on Boeing to buy its planes.

This is a developing story and will be updated.