A new chief executive takes over at Boeing on Thursday, and he plans to walk the floor of the factory near Seattle that has become the heart of the aerospace giant’s troubles.
Robert “Kelly” Ortberg takes over a money-losing company that has agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy to commit fraud, is struggling fix its aircraft-manufacturing process, and can’t bring two astronauts home from the International Space Station because of flaws in a spacecraft it built for NASA.
“I’m excited to dig in!” Ortberg told employees on his first day in the job.
Boeing announced Ortberg’s selection just over a week ago, on the same day that it posted another huge loss; more than $1.4 billion in the second quarter, which was marked by a steep drop in deliveries of new airline planes, including the 737 Max.
The National Transportation Safety Board just wrapped up a two-day hearing on the 737 Max that suffered a blowout of a panel in the side of the plane during an Alaska Airlines flight in January. The board’s investigators have interviewed workers at the 737 factory in Renton, Washington, who say they are under too much pressure to produce planes quickly, leading to mistakes.
During the hearing, a Federal Aviation Administration manager said the regulator has 16 open enforcement cases against Boeing — three or four times the normal number — and half started since the door-plug blowout.
Ortberg will try to fix Boeing after the last two CEOs failed.
