LONDON — When the chief executives of Boeing’s three divisions — commercial aircraft, defense and services — appeared before the press on the eve of the Farnborough Air Show, they stuck to a strict script boiled down to a single key message: they are all focused solely on improving safety and quality.
He dodged questions about possible strategic moves, including moving the headquarters back to Seattle or assuring Washington workers that they would build Boeing’s next all-new jet.
Hours later, Airbus’ top brass held a press conference at another hotel in central London to answer questions about the European aerospace champion’s ongoing struggle with delayed jet deliveries and losses in its space business.
Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury noted the problems and responded to each. He also pointed to several positive milestones, including the European aviation regulator’s certifying the new A321XLR extra-long-range model to fly passengers on Friday.
Faury’s joy at that achievement turned to sarcasm at Boeing. When the XLR was launched in 2019, Boeing was still considering designing an all-new plane in that larger, long-range single-aisle market, known as the New Small Airplane or Middle of the Market Airplane.
But Boeing shelved that plan. “Some people have been talking about the middle of the market for decades,” Faury said. “Airbus did that.”
Changes at Boeing
New commercial aircraft chief Stephanie Pope, who has been in the role for four months, said she is focused 24/7 on Boeing’s recovery: “Developing and executing our safety and quality plan [and] Stabilizing our factories.”
“This is a revolutionary change,” he said. “We have slowed down the speed of our factories significantly to implement this change.”
“And I’ve been very clear with my team, this is not about safety and quality versus timelines,” he said. “We have to take care of safety, we have to take care of quality, we have to meet our commitments with a predictable timeline. … These are not competing priorities.”
Despite all the bad news this year and concerns about Boeing’s progress, he insisted its planes were performing well and with orders selling out this decade, “we are a stable company.”
Pope declined to answer whether she was interested in the top job, which would replace Dave Calhoun, who is retiring as Boeing CEO later this year.
and she won’t be attracted Outside Two widely discussed options in the aviation world were discussed: moving Boeing headquarters back to Seattle to send a message of real cultural change to employees, and assuring workers in the Puget Sound region that they would have a chance to build Boeing’s next new airplane.
These are questions that industry experts and Boeing’s key customers are considering.
In an interview a few days before the Farnborough Air Show starting on mondayJohn Pleuger, CEO of Air Lease Corporation, a major jet leasing company and influential customer of Boeing and Airbus, said moving Boeing headquarters back to Seattle would be a “welcome move” not only for Puget Sound employees but for the entire aviation world because it signals that Boeing is serious about returning to its roots and former glory.
“I can’t think of anybody in the industry, the airline industry or the aircraft leasing community, or those of us who purchase new commercial aircraft, that wouldn’t appreciate this,” Pleuger said.
Plüger said that for Boeing to regain its position in the industry, the next CEO will have to “focus on the engineering side of the house, to be able to lead the way in new single-aisle aircraft.”
With the workhorse single-aisle jet market tilted 40% toward Boeing’s 737 Max and 60% toward the Airbus A320 jet family, Plüger said Boeing should launch a new jet in this segment first.
“Boeing has an opportunity to do something that will help restore a 50/50 balance in the market,” Pleuger said.
In an interview just before the air show, Adam Pilarski, a veteran aviation analyst at consulting firm Avitas, said moving the headquarters back to Seattle from Arlington, Virginia, would mean moving only a few hundred employees but would be symbolically significant.
“It shows that, yes, we want to keep our tradition. This is where we come from,” Pilarski said.
But the Pope in London balked, and focused his response on the situation already underway in Seattle, declining to comment on possible future steps.
“Our Boeing Commercial Airplanes headquarters [division] is in Seattle, and it always has been in Seattle, as well as many of our enterprise leaders, including the company’s head of engineering, who live in Seattle,” he said. “The Pacific Northwest has a deep legacy around aviation excellence and innovation, and that will continue.”
The press briefing underscored how Boeing’s public messaging has been stymied as it awaits the arrival of a new CEO, the timing of which is unknown except that it should be this year.
In an interview in London on Saturday, U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Everett, the ranking member of the House Transportation Committee’s aviation subcommittee, said the extended transition period to replace Calhoun is “painful for the sector.”
“I don’t want the region to be in a situation where we’re waiting for Godot,” he said.
In Samuel Beckett’s play, Godot never arrives, Larson said, while adding that Boeing will have to appoint a new CEO sometime this year. But in the meantime, he said “the uncertainty is upsetting for employees. It’s upsetting for the community of Everett.”
And Larson — who said he was on a quick official visit before the air show to assess “how the industry is changing globally and what that means for U.S. aviation” — made clear that the issue of who will build the next new plane is a big question for both Boeing employees and the Pacific Northwest economy.
Boeing’s assembly line workers “are the people who are bearing the brunt of the company’s suffering. … They’re bearing the burden of decisions made 20 years ago,” Larson said. “Boeing needs to show a commitment that these workers are valued.”
“I want it in the Northwest,” he said.
Boeing in London is not providing any clarity on this question. For now, its sole focus is to stabilize production and reorganize training and the airplane assembly process to avoid any quality lapses.
It will take time to achieve enough stabilization to safely scale up production.
Boeing will report its second-quarter earnings next week. Given the low rate of jet deliveries, the result will almost certainly be another big loss and billions of dollars in cash outflows.
At a London press session, Boeing defence chief Ted Colbert said financial results would also include big discounts for higher losses on large fixed-price military and government contracts, including the Air Force One programme, which is providing two new highly modified 747-8 jumbo jets for the US president.
Airbus on Boeing’s steep decline
Airbus executives were more upbeat and confident about their position.
Asked about the threat posed by the Chinese aviation industry, which has launched the COMAC C919 single-aisle jet, Airbus Commercial Chief Executive Officer Christian Scherer said he sees COMAC as a serious competitor that also has a strong domestic market.
However, he said the C919 was a mere copy of Western aircraft, offering nothing new. In contrast, he pointed out that when Airbus started out as a budding competitor 50 years ago, it “brought something new to the market”: the first twin-engine widebody, the A300, a standard that eventually replaced all four-engine aircraft.
“The C919 is essentially the A320neo,” said Scherer. “There is no new value being brought to the market.
Rather than rejoice at Boeing’s declining fortunes, Scherer indicated Airbus was taking it as a lesson.
“It’s never good news for our industry when any one player loses its way,” he said. What happened at Boeing is “a healthy reminder to us that you can’t take your eye off those things.”
“We are focused on what we want to do at Airbus,” he said. “Our path is clear, our goals are clear, our standards are clear and we want to maintain them.”
After the Boeing news conference, which was held in a windowless basement ballroom of an old luxury hotel in London, the pope left immediately without taking any questions.
The Airbus event was held in a sun-filled bar on the top floor of a modern hotel.
When it was over, the entire Airbus management team stayed put, moved to a large balcony area and gathered with groups of journalists, answering questions openly and freely while waiters served glasses of champagne and delicious canapés.
These were rival leadership teams facing very different realities.
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