‘sorry’ CEO
appeared most concerned with the safety of company profits, not the passengers on its troubled plane. Even after the second crash, Muilenburg resisted even temporarily grounding the 737 Max to get to the bottom of what caused the deaths.
As other countries – Canada, China, European nations, Singapore – banned the plane from their airspace, he pleaded his case to President Donald Trump, but to no avail. Thanks to public and congressional pressure, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) put the plane on temporary ice.
Only months after the first crash did Boeing even admit the company was at fault. In April, Muilenburg said he was ‘‘sorry’’. Shocking, I know.
How much Boeing has changed as a response to these horrifying events is subject to debate, to say the least. Boeing only informed the FAA last month about the existence of text messages between employees discussing potential issues with the MCAS system – despite the fact the company knew about them for months.
Muilenburg, who has been Boeing’s chief executive since 2015, believes he is the man to fix all this, telling Congress he’s ‘‘responsible’’ for repairing what went wrong under his corporate leadership. Under questioning this week, he said he would not resign.
He continues to collect his multimillion-dollar salary – US$30 million in cash and stock for 2018. When asked about that, he passed the buck to the company’s board of directors – of which he was chairman until last month. (Yes, it took almost a year from the date of the Lion Air crash for the rest of Boeing’s board to strip Muilenburg of the role.) In the meantime, the short-term thinking that led to the tragedies that grounded the 737 Max has cost Boeing at least $8 billion – and those hundreds of lives.
I have no doubt Muilenburg is sorry for all the deaths and lost profits, but if there’s one thing the events of the past years and the two days of congressional hearings made clear, there’s precious little evidence Boeing’s culture has changed much in response to the double tragedy.
No apology, no matter how heartfelt or well meaning, can compensate for that.
There’s precious little evidence Boeing’s culture has changed much in response to the double tragedy.