United Airlines was forced to ground its Boeing 737 MAX 9 fleet in January
Kelly Ortberg, the new CEO, said on Thursday that he would be based in Seattle, where the planemaker was founded. This would put him closer to the factory floor and help him handle a safety problem.
Ortberg confirmed earlier reports that he would be moving to Puget Sound, Washington, instead of Boeing’s corporate headquarters in Washington, D.C. This comes after months of pressure on the company to get back to its industrial roots after a door plug fell off a 737 MAX jet in the air in January because of missing bolts.
Ortberg, 64, will spend part of his first day on the job, Thursday, meeting the people who make the company’s popular 737 MAX jet at a factory in the Seattle neighborhood of Renton. A message to employees says that he has the difficult job of “restoring trust.”
“Because what we do is complex, I firmly believe that we need to get closer to the production lines and development programs across the company,” he wrote in the note.
People who used to work for Rockwell Collins, which is now part of RTX will also talk to suppliers, government officials, and inspectors. The company that makes planes is losing money and has problems that will likely take years to fix.
After the mid-air panel blowout on a nearly new MAX on January 5, production and shipping have slowed. The 787 Dreamliner can now only make less than five per month because of problems in the supply chain.
Along with avoiding a possible strike this year, Ortberg wants to increase the production of MAX jets from about 25 to 38 planes a month by the end of the year.
Executives in the airline business are positive about Ortberg but want him to put plane deliveries first because delays have made it harder for carriers to plan.
Antonoaldo Neves, CEO of Etihad Airways, told The National, “When I meet him and I ask him one thing, it will be, ‘Please deliver my planes on time.'”
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