It took 80 days. But for the airline industry, enough was enough.
A revolt by U.S. airline bosses helped topple Boeing’s top leadership including CEO Dave Calhoun this week, capping weeks of pressure after the freakish Jan. 5 blowout of a door plug on an Alaska Airlines 737 MAX 9 passenger jet, people familiar with the discussions said.
With the company’s major U.S. customers agitating for a boardroom meeting without Calhoun, Boeing’s board pre-empted their demands with a major upheaval.
Now, after the shakeup that took out the CEO, chairman and head of Boeing’s commercial airplanes business, airlines face prolonged uncertainty over jet supplies and are calling for deeper changes – starting with picking a manufacturing heavyweight as CEO.
Easter in Greece: 6 destinations for your travel list (photos)
“It wouldn’t surprise me that people said, ‘What exactly is the Boeing strategy to change this, not put a Band-Aid on it,’” former Air Canada CEO Calin Rovinescu told Reuters.
“There’s a point at which you cannot pretend that everything is fine. And I think this has been the call to action that you probably heard from the airline community.”
Continue here: Reuters