The fallout from recent 737 MAX issues continues. Now Boeing is shaking up management.
Wednesday, Stan Deal, CEO of
Boeing
Commercial Airplanes, announced that Ed Clark, head of the 737 MAX program, was leaving the company after 18 years. Katie Ringgold is succeeding Clark as vice president and general manager of the 737 program and the Renton, Wash., site where MAX jets are made. Ringgold was vice president of 737 delivery operations. Boeing says a person to fill that job has yet to be named.
“Seems smart to me,” says AeroDynamic Advisory managing director Richard Aboulafia. ”They’re using their own people for the new roles, which is certainly better than using outsiders from tangential industries and disciplines.”
Boeing stock was down about 1% in afternoon trading Wednesday, while the
S&P 500
and
Dow Jones Industrial Average
were both down about 0.5%.
The changes come weeks after an emergency-door plug blew out of a 737 MAX 9 operated by
Alaska Air Group
on Jan. 5. That incident led to the temporary grounding of the MAX 9 fleet along with additional oversight from aviation regulators.
Through midday trading, Boeing stock was down about 19% since the incident. The S&P 500 is up about 6% over the same span.
Along with the Clark/Ringgold switch, Boeing named Elizabeth Lund to the new position of senior vice president for Boeing Commercial Airplanes quality. She will lead quality control and quality assurance efforts, according to an emailed statement.
“Of course, the challenges for Boeing on quality require much more than just company organizational change,” adds Aboulafia. He has advocated for more power in the hands of engineering talent and more oversight of suppliers, as well as more money spent on product development.
All those steps would be positive, but the management changes are a start.
Write to Al Root at [email protected]
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