Boeing will appoint Robert “Kelly” Ortberg as its new CEO, the company said on Wednesday. The announcement comes months after current CEO Dave Calhoun announced plans to step down by year’s end amid a shake-up at the company stemming from its ongoing manufacturing crisis. Ortberg begins Aug. 8.
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Ortberg, 64, is a longtime aerospace industry veteran but a newcomer to Boeing.
Ortberg joined Rockwell Collins, a major aerospace component manufacturer and Boeing supplier, as a program manager in 1987. He rose through the ranks and became CEO in 2013. He ushered the company through a 2018 merger with United Technologies, which eventually led to it being absorbed by RTX, formerly known as Raytheon. He retired as CEO of RTX subsidiary Collins Aerospace in 2021.
He began his career as an engineer at Texas Instruments as an engineer, holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering and is a former chair of the Aerospace Industries Association Board of Governors.
Ortberg assumes the lead at Boeing at a fraught time for the U.S. plane-maker.
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Boeing has spent nearly the entirety of 2024 in crisis following the Jan. 5 decompression aboard an Alaska Airlines 737 MAX 9 that occurred when a door plug fell from the aircraft, leaving a hole in the fuselage. The subsequent investigation showed that the piece was removed and reinstalled by Boeing workers without crucial bolts to hold it in place during manufacturing. The pilots landed the plane a few minutes later without serious injuries among any passengers or crew members.
Read more: What to know about the Boeing 737 MAX 9 and the MAX series
The incident reopened intense scrutiny of Boeing that was mostly dormant since the 737 MAX reentered service in late 2020 following a 20-month global grounding of the fleet after the second of two fatal crashes. Public attention refocused on the plane-maker’s safety and quality control processes, while everything from insignificant and routine maintenance issues to more serious mechanical issues generated breaking news headlines amid hyperfocus on air travel during the first few months of the year.
Boeing was already struggling to increase its production rates on its commercial airplane manufacturing lines, particularly the 737 MAX, when the latest crisis hit. Boeing lowered its production rates during a “safety stand-down” in order to develop and institute a new safety management process. The company is trying to reach its previous production target of 38 MAX jets per month and then increase from there, although the Federal Aviation Administration said it would have to approve rate increases beyond that initial target.
Boeing has also struggled with new aircraft, with ongoing development and certification delays of its new 777X wide-body program, along with the 737 MAX 7 and 10 — the smallest and largest variants of its narrow-body program. Earlier this month, the FAA cleared Boeing to begin its certification-proving flights with the 777X, a major step toward bringing the jet to market.
Calhoun took over as CEO in early 2020 during a prolonged grounding of the global 737 MAX fleet. The grounding, which ultimately lasted for 20 months, began after two separate crashes involving the then-new 737 MAX, one in 2018 and one in 2019, killed a combined 346 people. Before becoming CEO, Calhoun was the chairman of Boeing’s board.
In March of this year, facing mounting pressure amid the crisis, Calhoun announced that he would step down at the end of the year. Boeing Commercial Airplanes chief Stan Deal left his post immediately. Deal was replaced by Stephanie Pope, a Boeing veteran. Pope was considered a possible internal candidate for the overall CEO role.
