Boeing CEO David Calhoun will leave the troubled aircraft maker at the end of the year, leaving a difficult turnaround job to his yet-to-be-named successor. Calhoun - a veteran crisis manager - was hired in 2020 to steer the planemaker out of a reputation setback after crashes in 2018 and 2019 killed nearly 350 people and caused the grounding of its best-selling 737 MAX jet. But his tenure might not join the list of his successful earlier stints including at Caterpillar, General Electric and media company Nielsen, leaving when the iconic planemaker is struggling to resolve production issues and safety concerns. The Jan. 5 mid-air panel blowout was the most recent in a spate of safety issues that have shaken the industry's confidence in Boeing and hampered its ability to increase production to meet high demand for jets. Under Calhoun's leadership, the company has struggled to keep pace with competitor Airbus. Boeing stock has lost 43% of its value since Calhoun took the top job on Jan. 13, 2020, underperforming the benchmark S&P 500 index. Rival Airbus added more than 26% to its market cap during the same period. While both planemakers have received bumper orders for their jets as airlines try to cater to a post-pandemic travel boom, Boeing's production and quality issues have frustrated customers. Airbus, meanwhile, has been steadily growing single-aisle market share with its A320 jet family in the wake of multiple crises involving the MAX.<br/>
general
Help wanted at Boeing. CEO Dave Calhoun on Monday announced he is stepping down from the aerospace giant’s top post at year’s end as the company struggles with a safety and production quality crisis tied to its bestselling airplane, the 737 Max. Boeing said it will begin a search for Calhoun’s replacement. Boeing also announced Monday it’s replacing board Chair Larry Kellner and the CE of its all-important commercial airplanes unit, Stan Deal. Calhoun told CNBC on Monday that the decision to retire was “100%” his own and that he would be involved in finding his successor. His departure isn’t much of a surprise given the struggles of the last few months. Boeing’s customers had grown frustrated under Calhoun’s watch as they faced the fallout from recurring quality issues that span programs like the 737 Max, the 787 Dreamliner and the two 747s that will serve as Air Force One aircraft. “We need someone to fix Boeing,” one major airline executive, who wasn’t authorized to speak to the media, told CNBC after Boeing announced the management shake-up Monday. “They unequivocally needed a change.” With supply chain issues, quality lapses and more regulator scrutiny in the wake of a panel blowout from an Alaska Airlines 737 Max 9 in January, airplane deliveries are arriving late, and airline executives say the problems have forced them to change their growth and fleet plans. Executives at Boeing’s customers told CNBC they want the company’s new leader to have manufacturing acumen, expertise in the highly regulated and technical world of aviation, and, perhaps most difficult of all, the ability to rally Boeing’s employees and ensure a culture of safety, consistency and innovation. “This is going to be a challenging role to fill. You’re going to need someone with a huge amount of energy and commitment,” said John Plueger, CEO of Air Lease, a major buyer of Boeing planes that leases them to airlines. “You don’t want somebody for two years. You want someone at the head of the ship for as long as possible.” “I want somebody who knows how to handle a big, long-cycled business like ours,” Calhoun said Monday while announcing his departure. “It’s not just the production of the airplane. It’s the development of the next airplane. Our next lead is going to develop ... the next airplane for the Boeing company.”<br/>
Moody's Investors Service on Tuesday said it was considering downgrading Boeing's "Baa2" senior unsecured rating and "Prime-2" short-term rating. "Placing the ratings on review for downgrade follows Moody's belief that Boeing will be unable to deliver 737 narrow-body aircraft at the volumes required for it to materially expand its free cash flow and retire debt in a reasonable timeframe," the agency said. The Baa2-backed long-term revenue bond and VMIG 2-backed short-term revenue bond, issued by the Miami-Dade County Industrial Development Authority, were also placed on review for downgrade. The US planemaker has been wrestling with a growing crisis following a January mid-air panel blowout on a 737 MAX plane that resulted in a shakeup among its top management on Monday. Boeing referred to a comment last week from CFO Brian West who said, “The path to stable financials is a stable factory and that's what we're focused on right now.”<br/>
One would-be passenger pretended to pack his carry-on bag with tools, in case he needed to make an in-flight repair. Someone else compared the mere act of boarding a commercial flight to the harebrained, death-defying stunts featured on “Jackass.” “Pray for me, I will have my seatbelt on the entire time,” reads the caption of one TikTok video recorded by an airline passenger as she awaited takeoff. The reason for her concern: Her seat was in the exit row of a Boeing 737 Max. On TikTok and X, users have been sharing videos and memes poking fun at Boeing, one of the world’s leading manufacturers of commercial jetliners — several of which have figured in headline-making incidents in recent weeks. On Monday, the company announced that its CE, Dave Calhoun, would be stepping down at the end of the year, capping off a tumultuous tenure that has included groundings, Covid-related disruptions and a dramatic door-panel blowout. Although no injuries have been reported as a result of the recent issues, irreverence is the lingua franca of social media, and a rash of alarming headlines has proved more than enough to get some to set their sights on what some have jokingly called Boeing’s “flop era.” Skylie Shore was recently traveling with a friend from Boston to St. Lucia, with a layover in Miami. Shore posts as skylietravels on TikTok, where she documents her jet-setting exploits, including trips to Iceland, Mexico and China. Seeing an opportunity to wring a bit of content from the flight, she posted a seven-second video: “Flying on the boeing 737 max 8 … wish us luck.” Shore, 21, who is a corporate event planner and travels a lot for work and in her free time, has never had any anxiety with flying until now. “Originally, I looked to switch my flight to avoid going on the Boeing 737,” Shore said. “But it just wasn’t an option because it didn’t fit my travel plan.” (In fact, Shore’s Boston-to-Miami flight on March 15 was not on a 737 Max 8 — a best-selling Boeing jet that was grounded worldwide after two crashes five years ago that left 346 people dead — but on a 737-800.) Story has more.<br/>
The great Easter getaway could see travellers caught up in delays by road, ferry, rail and air. In a normal year there would be a gap between most schools breaking up and the long weekend. But with Easter falling so early the two are combined. Term is ending at many schools on Thursday 28 March, putting extra pressure on transportation. At least three major UK airports – Bristol, Newcastle and Edinburgh – have told The Independent this will be their busiest Easter ever. Some airlines are predicting record numbers for the spell between Good Friday and Easter Monday. Geneva routes will be extremely busy with winter sports fans, while Malaga, Alicante, Faro and Tenerife are the leading spring sunshine holiday destinations. Among city breaks, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Dublin, Paris and Rome are the most popular. Dubai, Orlando and New York are the key longer-haul destinations.<br/>
Chinese state-owned planemaker COMAC's first wide-body jet is in its "detailed design stage", an executive said on Tuesday, following a report from the jet's fuselage manufacturer aiming to deliver the first fuselage section by September 2027. The statement from the manufacturer appears to be the first indication of a production timeline for the C929 jet since Russia in 2023 left a China-Russia joint venture to develop the twin-aisle plane - formerly known as the CR929. China, through the state-owned Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC), has invested heavily in its attempt to break into a passenger jet market dominated by Western planemakers Boeing and Airbus. COMAC has so far put the narrow-body C919 and regional jet ARJ21 into commercial operation, but its long-haul wide-body program has experienced delays. This included Russia in 2023 dropping out of a joint venture to develop the plane. The C929 has entered the detailed design stage, COMAC marketing director Zhang Xiaoguang told a conference in Shangahi on Tuesday, local media reported. In February Huarui Aero, the Chinese manufacturer selected by COMAC in 2021 to build the C929 fuselage, said the first "middle section of the fuselage" will be delivered in 2027, by Sept. 1. COMAC did not respond to a request for comment. The C929 will have around 280-400 seats and a range of 12,000km, COMAC says.<br/>
The tech behind a flying car, originally developed and successfully test-flown in Europe, has been bought by a Chinese firm. Powered by a BMW engine and normal fuel, the AirCar flew for 35 minutes between two Slovakian airports in 2021, using runways for take-off and landing. It took just over two minutes to transform from a car into an aircraft. Now vehicles made based on its design will be used within a "specific geographical region" of China. Hebei Jianxin Flying Car Technology Company, headquartered in Cangzhou, has purchased exclusive rights to manufacture and use AirCar aircraft inside an undisclosed area. The firm has built its own airport and flight school after a previous acquisition from another Slovak aircraft manufacturer, said Anton Zajac, cofounder of KleinVision, the company which created AirCar. Having led the way in the development of the EV revolution, China is now actively developing flying transport solutions. Last month a firm called Autoflight carried out a test flight of a passenger-carrying drone between the cities of Shenzhen and Zhuhai. The journey, which takes three hours by car, was completed in 20 minutes, it said - although the aircraft contained no passengers.<br/>
Australia’s airlines have been accused of price-gouging but several industry insiders say there’s another reason your airfares are high — the airports. In his recent union-funded price gouging report, former Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) chair Allan Fels singled Qantas out for overcharging. But Professor Fels also called out airports in the report. The report stated they hold monopoly power and are "enabled to overcharge" due to unregulated prices. The report also stated that when the ACCC has previously called for greater regulation it has “been rejected with weak reasons”. Those views are shared by Graeme Samuel, the chair of Airlines for Australia and New Zealand, who is keenly aware of hostility between airlines and operators. "If we look at the relationship between airports and airlines it's been fraught with tension over many years," Mr Samuel told 7.30. "And that is primarily because while the airlines are subject to many competitive pressures between themselves, the airports are monopolists. And when monopolists are negotiating, they are not really negotiating they are saying take it or leave it."<br/>