Arlington
Calhoun bails out: It’s no surprise David Calhoun is stepping down as CEO of Boeing at the end of the year, says Jessica Karl on Bloomberg. The man, who took over four years ago to address the crisis at the aircraft maker following a pair of deadly plane crashes, himself presided over incidents in which wheels and door panels “blew off like little dandelion seeds mid-flight”. In early 2020, Boeing should have selected “a fresh pair of eyes” to take over from Dennis Muilenburg. Instead, the company “went with a seasoned director who had been with Boeing since 2009”.
Calhoun’s “‘I’m the new guy’ line got real old, real fast. Now he’s going down, with nothing but a generous ‘golden parachute’ to save him.” It’s true Calhoun hasn’t “chalked up much success” in changing Boeing’s culture, “which had become excessively focused on bean counting at the expense of engineering”, while European rival Airbus has forged ahead, says Jon Sindreu in The Wall Street Journal. Then again, “changing the course of an industrial
