Boeing will hire Robert “Kelly” Ortberg as its new CEO, the company said Wednesday. The announcement comes months after current CEO Dave Calhoun announced plans to step down by the end of the year amid a shakeup at the company stemming from its ongoing manufacturing crisis. Ortburg will start from August 8.
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Ortberg, 64, is a longtime aerospace industry veteran but a newcomer to Boeing.
Ortberg joined Rockwell Collins, a major aerospace component manufacturer and Boeing supplier, in 1987 as a program manager. He rose through the ranks and became CEO in 2013. He started the company through a 2018 merger with United Technologies, which eventually became Absorbed by RTX, formerly known as Raytheon. He retired in 2021 as CEO of RTX subsidiary Collins Aerospace.
He began his career as an engineer at Texas Instruments, holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering, and is a former chairman of the Aerospace Industries Association Board of Governors.
Ortberg takes the helm at Boeing during a difficult time for the US plane maker.
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Boeing spent almost all of 2024 in crisis following a Jan. 5 decompression on an Alaska Airlines 737 MAX 9 that caused a hole in the fuselage when a door plug fell from the aircraft. Subsequent investigation revealed that the piece had been removed and reinstalled by Boeing workers without the critical bolt to hold it in place during production. The pilots landed the plane a few minutes later without serious injury to any passengers or crew members.
Read more: What to know about the Boeing 737 MAX 9 and the MAX series
The incident reopened an intensive investigation into Boeing that had largely been dormant since the 737 MAX re-entered service in late 2020 following the second of two fatal crashes following a 20-month global grounding of the fleet. Public attention was refocused on the plane maker’s safety and quality control procedures, while everything from minor and routine maintenance issues to more serious mechanical problems generated breaking news headlines amid the hyperfocus on air travel in the first few months of the year.
Boeing was already struggling to increase production rates on its commercial airplane manufacturing line, particularly the 737 MAX, when the latest crisis hit. Boeing reduced its production rate during a “safety stand-down” to develop and institute a new safety management process. The company is trying to reach its previous production target of 38 MAX jets per month and then increase from there, although the Federal Aviation Administration said it would have to allow a rate increase beyond that initial target.
Boeing is also struggling with new aircraft, with continued development and certification delays for its new 777X wide-body program, along with the 737 MAX 7 and 10 — the smallest and largest variants of its narrow-body program. Earlier this month, the FAA approved Boeing to begin flights proving its certification with the 777X, a major step toward bringing the jet to market.
Calhoun took over as CEO in early 2020 during a prolonged grounding of the global 737 MAX fleet. The grounding, which ultimately lasted 20 months, began after two separate crashes involving the then-new 737 MAX, one in 2018 and one in 2019, which killed a combined 346 people. Before becoming CEO, Calhoun was chairman of the board of Boeing.
In March of this year, Calhoun, facing increasing pressure amid the crisis, announced that he would step down at the end of the year. Stan Deal, the head of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, left his position immediately. Deal was replaced by Stephanie Pope, a Boeing veteran. Pope was considered a possible internal candidate for the overall CEO role.