Next Boeing CEO needs to be ‘1,000%’ on top of safety and culture: Buttigieg – Washington Examiner

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg admitted there were “a lot of concerns” over what is happening inside Boeing, following the announcement that the company’s CEO, Dave Calhoun, will step down at the end of the year.

The aircraft manufacturing company underwent a major leadership shake-up on Monday when Calhoun and two other senior executives announced their resignations. Calhoun’s departure comes as Boeing is under scrutiny over recent airline accidents, including the blowout of a door plug on an Alaska Airlines jet in January.

“The FAA administrator talked about concerns that arose when he visited their manufacturing facility,” Buttigieg said on Fox News’s America’s Newsroom. “Not just day-to-day operations, but really a question about culture: Are they prioritizing safety? And what we saw was a lot of focus on production. Of course, production is important, but the most important thing is safety.”

The secretary was pressed on whether he viewed Calhoun’s resignation as good news. Buttigieg stressed that he would not take a side on Boeing’s leadership, only saying that the next leader should lead the company “in a direction towards safety.”

“So what I’ll say is that whoever is going to lead Boeing going forward needs to lead Boeing in a direction where culturally and operationally, they are 1,000% on top of all quality and safety issues,” he added. “And FAA’s taken an extraordinary step of restricting how many aircraft they can produce isn’t going to allow them to produce any higher numbers of aircraft until and unless they can demonstrate that they can do it safely.”

Buttigieg also stressed that flying is still the “safest mode of travel in the world.”

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Earlier this month, Boeing chief financial officer Brian West warned investors that the company will expend more cash than expected in the first quarter, with spending expected to be between $4 billion and $4.5 billion. The amount was “higher than we originally planned back in January,” West admitted to investors.

White House officials stated on March 15 that the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board were “taking the action” to ensure that Boeing airplanes are safe to fly on in the future. However, they did not clarify if President Joe Biden believes that Boeing planes are safe for consumers right now.

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