More Boeing Bad News

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

So, they are bribing him to go.
Shameless, all of them.

[Karearea]

Boeing shareholders vote to approve $33 million CEO pay package ...
...

^

"Well done, thou good and faithful servant"...

[PHXPhlyer]

Boeing whistleblower died by suicide, police investigation reveals

https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/17/business ... index.html

Boeing whistleblower John Barnett died by suicide, according to a police report released on Friday, bringing to end an investigation of the shocking death of a longtime employee who raised concerns about the airplane manufacturer’s safety and production standards – and who sued the company, claiming Boeing illegally retaliated against him.

Barnett, 62, was found dead in a vehicle on March 9 from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in Charleston, South Carolina. Officers had been dispatched to conduct a welfare check on Barnett at a Holiday Inn when he failed to show up to a deposition in his case against Boeing, according to his lawyers and a police incident report.

When they arrived, responding officers found Barnett dead in the driver’s seat of a truck in the parking lot. He was holding a handgun. The initial police report also said there was a note in the truck.

But Barnett’s lawyers said in a statement following his death that his deposition was nearing an end and he appeared to be in good spirits.

“We didn’t see any indication he would take his own life. No one can believe it,” his lawyers, Robert Turkewitz and Brian Knowles, said in a statement on March 12. “The Charleston police need to investigate this fully and accurately and tell the public what they find out.”

The Charleston Police Department on Friday concluded their investigation into Barnett’s death, saying the Charleston County Coroner’s Office determined that Barnett had killed himself.

The investigation found that Barnett was shot in the head at close range and the weapon was found in his right hand. There was also a notebook found in the front seat of the car that showed signs that “he was going through a period of serious personal distress,” according to a media release about the police investigation.

Police shared with CNN an image of a note left in the car, which had multiple disparaging messages directed at Boeing.

“As this investigation comes to a close, we should not forget it represents the loss of Mr. Barnett’s life,” police said, “We extend our deepest sympathies to his family during this difficult time and hope they continue to find the strength to persevere in absence.”

Boeing could not immediately be reached for comment. In March, the company said it was saddened by Barnett’s death.

“Our thoughts are with his family and friends,” the company said.

Accusations of safety lapses
Barnett, a former quality manager who had worked at Boeing for decades, told the New York Times in 2019 that he had discovered unsafe wiring clusters in Boeing’s manufacturing processes that, if severed by nearby metal slivers, could have led to the catastrophic failure of an aircraft.

“As a quality manager at Boeing, you’re the last line of defense before a defect makes it out to the flying public,” Barnett told the Times. “And I haven’t seen a plane out of Charleston yet that I’d put my name on saying it’s safe and airworthy.”

In a statement sent to the plant’s employees and provided to CNN at the time, Brad Zaback, a site leader at the plant and general manager of the 787 program, said the Times’ report “paints a skewed and inaccurate picture of the program and of our team (at the plant).”

Zaback, who said the Times declined an invitation to visit the plant, said “quality is the bedrock of who we are,” adding that the plant delivers “the highest quality airplanes.”

Since Barnett’s initial public warnings about Boeing, the company has had several high-profile safety and quality lapses, including the blowout of a door plug on a 737 Max shortly after takeoff in January. That led the US Justice Department to announce this week that Boeing could face criminal prosecution for its history of safety problems.

PP

[G-CPTN]

These multi-million $ settlements seem large, but how much do the recipients actually receive after tax?

[PHXPhlyer]

Too much!

PP

[Woody]

BREAKING: The full slate of 11 Boeing directors, including David Calhoun, have been reelected at its annual shareholder meeting.

[OFSO]

How reassuring.

[PHXPhlyer]

Saudi Arabia’s biggest-ever plane order isn’t going to Boeing

https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/20/business ... index.html

Saudi Arabia’s national airline has placed an order for 105 Airbus airplanes in the largest-ever deal in the country’s aviation history — another win for troubled Boeing’s European rival.

Ibrahim Al-Omar, director general of Saudia Group, the state-controlled owner of the Saudia airline and low-cost carrier Flyadeal, said Monday that the first planes would be delivered in the first quarter of 2026.

“The Saudia Group announces today the largest deal in the history of Saudi aviation,” he said in a speech at the Future Aviation Forum in Riyadh, referring to the contract with Airbus.

Saudia Group’s current fleet comprises 93 Airbus and 51 Boeing aircraft, according to its website. And the latest deal adds to the group’s existing backlog of Airbus orders of 39 aircraft, the European airplane maker said in a statement.

Al-Omar did not specify whether it was the number of airplanes ordered or the total value of the order that made it Saudi Arabia’s biggest-ever aviation deal. When asked by CNN about that, as well as the value of the deal, Saudia Group did not respond, while Airbus declined to comment.

But, in a press release, the organizers of the Future Aviation Forum said the new order totaled $19 billion.

In a separate statement, Al-Omar said the new order would help realize Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, a program aimed at diversifying the country’s economy away from oil. A key part of the program is making the kingdom an attractive destination for tourists.

“Saudia has ambitious operational objectives to meet growing demand,” Al-Omar said. “We are increasing flights and seat capacity across our existing 100-plus destinations on four continents, with plans for further expansion.”

The country hopes to attract 150 million tourists per year by 2030, according to its National Tourism Strategy.

Another win for Boeing’s rival
News of the Saudi deal comes as Airbus’s main rival Boeing (BA) faces intense scrutiny over a series of safety failures, including a mid-air blowout of part of a fuselage in January.

The incident has prompted a number of investigations into Boeing’s practices, an executive shake-up and promises that the company will turn itself around.

But Boeing has been struggling ever since fatal crashes of its 737 Max aircraft in 2018 and 2019 resulted in a 20-month grounding of its best-selling plane. The company was also hit by the pandemic, which brought air travel to a near-standstill for months and caused deep losses at most of the airlines that buy Boeing’s planes.

Since the start of the grounding in 2019, the company has reported adjusted losses totaling more than $31 billion. Since the beginning of this year, its stock price has tanked by almost 28%.

Despite having a backlog of orders amounting to more 5,600 commercial jets, worth $529 billion, Boeing cannot make planes quickly enough each year to turn a profit as it’s working to address its quality issues. Meanwhile, Airbus, reported an order backlog of almost 8,600 aircraft at the end of 2023 and posted a profit of €3.8 billion ($4.1 billion) for the year.

PP

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

In a separate statement, Al-Omar said the new order would help realize Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, a program aimed at diversifying the country’s economy away from oil America

FTFY

[FD2]

A key part of the program is making the kingdom an attractive destination for tourists.

The country hopes to attract 150 million tourists per year by 2030, according to its National Tourism Strategy.

Camel riding and racing, women wearing bikinis on their many beaches and cool dudes surfing there, guided tours around Mecca, a 'black' museum, naturist beaches, - any other suggestions?

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

Latest Bargain:
Big cuts on Chop Chop Square visits

Saudi Evening News
A correction:
Our statement that "The Kingdom takes journalistic criticism in good part" should, in the interests of strict accuracy, have read
"The Kingdom takes good, critical journalists apart"

[llondel]

A union representing Boeing employees held a training session last week on whistleblower protection rights, suggesting the troubled jetmaker's problems may be far from over.

The Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA), which represents workers at Boeing and Boeing spin-off-slash-supplier Spirit AeroSystems, held a training session for council representatives at both corporations on Friday.

"The seminar comes after two years of SPEEA unsuccessfully trying to negotiate strong anti-retaliation language with the Boeing Co. in particular," the union said on its website. It said such anti-retaliation measures are needed because SPEEA members continue to report being punished for speaking out about safety concerns.

"The whistleblower seminar will provide Council Reps the basic tools to be front-line resources to SPEEA members who are considering speaking up about an issue but don't trust their employers' internal systems," the SPEEA added. ...

https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/20/ ... _training/

[PHXPhlyer]

Boeing expects a 2024 cash burn, slow recovery of airplane deliveries amid crisis, CFO says
The company’s aircraft deliveries in the first quarter fell to the lowest level since the pandemic.

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/busine ... rcna153827

Boeing will burn through cash this year and deliveries of new planes won’t improve in the second quarter from the first, as the manufacturer deals with a host of production challenges tied to its bestselling planes, the company’s CFO, Brian West, said Thursday.

A month ago, West forecast Boeing would generate free cash flow “in the low single-digit billions.” The new forecast shows the mounting costs of the plane maker’s latest crises.

Boeing burned through nearly $4 billion in cash in the first quarter and West said that figure could be similar or “possibly a little worse” in the second quarter, but that the company would likely return to generating cash in the second half of 2024.

The company’s aircraft deliveries in the first quarter fell to the lowest level since the pandemic. The bulk of a plane’s price is paid when it’s handed over to a customer.

Boeing’s shares lost more than 7% on Thursday after West’s comments at a Wolfe Research industry conference, a slide that weighed down the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

“We have frustrated and disappointed our customers because of some of the production supply chain issues that we’re up against,” West said at the conference. “And while I understand that frustration, the most important thing we can do for our customers and the supply chain in the industry is to focus on the actions that are underway as we speak so that we could stabilize this production system, improve quality, and get more predictable.”

Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun in March said he would step down by the end of the year, and the company replaced the chairman and chief executive of its commercial airplane unit. Leading up to the shake-up, CEOs of major airline customers complained about delivery delays and difficulty planning flights because of surprise disruptions.

Boeing’s latest production issues surfaced after a door plug blew out midair from a nearly new 737 Max 9 at the start of the year, just as the company was trying to repair years of reputational damage from two fatal Max crashes in 2018 and 2019.

The accident increased federal scrutiny of the company, whose executives have vowed to stamp out production flaws and regain the trust of regulators, airline customers and the public.

Next Thursday, Boeing leaders are set to meet with the Federal Aviation Administration to present the company’s plan to improve its quality control, the FAA said. The agency gave Boeing 90 days to complete the plan starting in late February.

Other problems have also sprung up, including a pause on deliveries of 737 Max planes to China to review batteries for the cockpit voice recorder. Boeing said in a statement that it is working with “our Chinese customers on the timing of their deliveries as the Civil Aviation Administration of China completes its review of batteries contained within the 25-hour cockpit voice recorder assembly unit.”

Earlier this month, the FAA said it opened a new probe into the 787 Dreamliner inspections after the company disclosed “misconduct” by some employees. The agency said it was looking into whether employees falsified records.

Parts shortages have also slowed deliveries of Dreamliners, Boeing has said. American Airlines last month said it would cut some international flights because of delays of the wide-body jets. Other carriers, including United Airlines and Southwest Airlines, said they had to scale back growth and hiring plans because of delayed Boeing jets.

PP

[PHXPhlyer]

3-hour meeting ends with FAA saying Boeing can’t increase Max plane production until quality is fixed

https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/30/business ... index.html

Boeing executives presented sweeping changes to the company’s production process and safety systems in a three-hour meeting with the Federal Aviation Administration on Thursday. The plan is meant to reassure the public, airline customers and regulators that the troubled company’s planes are safe to fly.

“This is a guide for a new way for Boeing to do business,” FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker said after the meeting. He said he expected the company to produce “systemic change.”

Going forward, Boeing and FAA leaders said they will meet weekly on progress implementing the plan and the FAA will conduct monthly reviews.

The plan includes several components to improve employee training, clarify instructions for assembly line employees, prevent suppliers from shipping defective components to Boeing and go through additional FAA audits, the agency said.

The FAA had ordered outgoing Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun and his aides to develop the roadmap after two reviews in February found serious issues at the planemaker.

The meeting included Calhoun and other leaders at the company, the FAA said. Whitaker said the meeting included an “extensive PowerPoint presentation that broke the plan into components.”

Whitaker said he expects the company to build “robust” safety and quality management plans. He said the FAA will not allow Boeing to increase the number of planes coming off of its Max assembly line each month until it is satisfied on production quality.

“I don’t think it will happen in the next few months,” Whitaker said.

He said Boeing has not asked the FAA to release it from the limits. “We have not even had preliminary discussions on that point,” he said. And Boeing’s CFO was at an industry conference last week and signaled the company is nowhere close to being ready for increases.

Whitaker said the FAA has changed the way it monitors work on the Boeing assembly line. “We’ve changed that model,” he said, from paperwork audits to inspectors on the assembly line.

Whitaker said the FAA and Boeing will have “constant engagement,” ranging from FAA inspectors on Boeing’s factory floor daily to weekly senior meetings and quarter meetings between the CEO and FAA administrator.

Work at Boeing has begun on its quality improvement plan, which includes hundreds of hours of new employee training and more time for managers to spend supervising production line work.

The improvements include 7,500 new tools and equipment, 400 improved work instructions, and 300 hours of employee training material, the company said.

Boeing says it is increasing employee coaching and eliminated some responsibilities so that managers can spend more time supervising employees on the factory floor.

“Many of these actions are underway and our team is committed to executing on each element of the plan,” Calhoun said.

His deputy who oversees the commercial airplane program, Stephanie Pope, urged employees in a company email today to “continue to Speak Up” on safety issues. That company has said an earlier request for feedback drove a five-fold increase in reports, and some of those are reflected in the new plan.

“We will succeed as a team and execute with safety, quality, and compliance in everything we do,” wrote Pope, the CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes.

Turbulent year for Boeing
Boeing has seen a string of bad news this year, from a mid-air fuselage blowout in January to probes from regulators to a report faulting Boeing for major quality issues. The new report is meant to show that the company – and Calhoun – can turn around what was once an international hallmark of manufacturing quality.

Boeing’s plan could also shed new light on the findings of FAA inspectors at Boeing’s Renton, Washington, facility that builds the 737 Max, as well as the Wichita, Kansas, plant of key supplier Spirit AeroSystems. The FAA provided the findings to both companies but shielded the report from public view and has so far declined CNN requests for a copy.

Neither the FAA nor Boeing has made public the actual plan. Whitaker said the plan is Boeing’s, and it can decide how to publicize it.

The plan is seen as a crucial step to rebuilding the safety culture and practices of the nation’s single largest exporter.

Boeing has begun implementing changes within its production process that it says will produce safer airplanes. The changes include clearer instructions for the assembly line, training improvements and more tools. The company says it has also ordered each station be completed before a plane moves on the assembly line and directed Spirit to not ship defective fuselages to Boeing’s Renton plant.

Whitaker ordered the plan from Boeing after reviewing the findings of FAA auditors who visited the company’s 737 Max assembly line. The auditors were deployed in response to the January 5 door plug blowout on Alaska Airlines flight 1282, a months-old Max. The National Transportation Safety Board believes Boeing delivered the plane to the airline without critical bolts that hold the door plug in place, and Calhoun admitted to a “quality escape.”

After the blowout, the FAA grounded Max 9s for three weeks and ordered inspections of each door plug.

It was the second grounding since the first 737 Max delivery in 2017. The Max 8 spent 20 months grounded after crashes in 2018 and 2019 that killed 346 people.

The plan may be one of Boeing’s last major milestones under Calhoun, who announced in the wake of the blowout he would join other senior managers in leaving the company this year. The corporate board has a search underway for a new chief executive.

A previous safety culture review – including FAA and outside experts – was broader than the Max assembly line and found a “disconnect between Boeing’s senior management and other members of the organization on safety culture.” The timing could not have been worse for the company: The panel was wrapping up its work around the time of the door plug blowout and it landed on desks at the FAA at the same time as the initial production line audit results.

PP

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

Sweeping changes just means they are admitting that the QC process for the last few years has been deeply flawed.
How many faults got through?
We don't know. Nobody knows.
We just wait for more bits to fall off the aeroplanes, or the aeroplanes to fall out of the sky. Again.
Me, I'm waiting from a safe distance.

a “disconnect between Boeing’s senior management and other members of the organization on safety culture.”

Which is meant by Boeing PR (who doubtless draft this stuff for the FAA) to be interpreted as senior management not getting what they asked for, but probably means senior management were the ones causing the reduced safety culture and the rank and file not being happy with it.

[Karearea]

...The company says it has ... directed Spirit to not ship defective fuselages to Boeing’s Renton plant. ...

So pleased.

[PHXPhlyer]

Boeing releases Executive Summary of FAA plan

Too long to cut and paste.

https://leehamnews.com/wp-content/uploa ... 0-2024.pdf

PP

[PHXPhlyer]

Boeing releases Executive Summary of FAA plan

Too long to cut and paste.

https://leehamnews.com/wp-content/uploa ... 0-2024.pdf

PP

I waded through all 11 pages of this Executive Summary.
I ought to get some kind of reward for slogging through all of the acronyms and corporatespeak goobldygook.
They should have a Universal Translator to make sense of it all.

Good luck Boeing. You're going to need it.

PP

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

The appointed independent safety guy used to be in charge of nuclear safety for the USN, so should be beyond reproach.
However, he's subs, not an aviation guy, so he can only tell them what's wrong, not how to fix it.