Boeing Made a Huge Move Days Before Trump's Victory, Major Change Underway
Leadership at the beleaguered Boeing Company forced a major shakeup shortly before President-elect Donald Trump’s victory on Election Day, hinting the aerospace giant will have new priorities under the incoming administration.
On Oct. 31, Boeing quietly dismantled its global diversity, equity and inclusion department and shuffled the resources to more critical parts of the company, Bloomberg reported.
Sara Liang Bowen, a vice president who headed the DEI department, left the company that same day,
Staff from the dissolved DEI team will be shuffled around to other parts of the company.
The push for diversity came under former CEO Dave Calhoun, who stepped down in August.
When Calhoun originally took leadership of the company in 2020 safety was already a primary problem for the company. Two crashes of 737 MAX jetliners, one in 2018 and one in 2019, took the lives of 346 people.
The new CEO, Kelly Ortberg, appears to be trimming the fat to help Boeing do what it once did best — build planes.
To achieve this goal, it seems dividing employees on the basis of race, gender and religion had to go the way of the dinosaur. The move, while likely not intended for this purpose, also goes a little ways in insulating the company from some of Trump’s potential criticism.
The broader context of the move can’t be ignored.
Boeing planes have been plagued by quality control, maintenance and other issues in recent years. Failures of the company’s passenger jets, often in mid-flight, have been a not-uncommon feature in recent headlines, as well.
On Oct. 3, an engine on a Boeing 737-800 burst into flame while the jet was taking off from Italy’s Aeroporti di Puglia.
The plane was able to come to a relatively safe stop as passengers evacuated with the help of an inflatable slide.
Days before this incident, the National Transportation Safety Board issued an urgent warning about Boeing’s 737NG and 737MAX.
“The National Transportation Safety Board Thursday issued urgent safety recommendations to The Boeing Company and the Federal Aviation Administration in response to the potential for a jammed or restricted rudder control system on some 737 airplanes,” a Sept. 26 news release by the NTSB read.
“Investigators found evidence of moisture in both actuators, which failed testing. Collins Aerospace subsequently determined that a sealed bearing was incorrectly assembled during production of the actuators, leaving the unsealed side more susceptible to moisture that can freeze and limit rudder system movement.”
More than 353 actuators have been delivered to Boeing since February 2017 that were affected by this condition, Collins told the company.
Perhaps most famously, a door plug blew off of a midair 737 MAX 9 in January.
The major failure sparked wider public scrutiny of the company and the multiple catastrophic issues that have plagued the company in recent years.
Boeing’s problems are not limited to issues below the stratosphere.
A capsule produced by the company left so many doubts in astronauts’ minds that it was rejected as a return vessel. Concerns over the capsule’s safety turned the eight-day mission into a much longer stay.
The Boeing Starliner capsule was sent back to Earth without a crew.
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