Airline regulators in the US have begun an investigation after an engine cowling on a Boeing 737-800 fell off during take-off and struck a wing flap.
Related...
FAA probing Boeing whistleblower's quality claims on 787, 777 jets
www.reuters.com
... The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is investigating a Boeing whistleblower's claims that the company dismissed safety and quality concerns in the production of the planemaker's 787 and 777 jets, an agency spokesperson said on Tuesday.
Boeing engineer Sam Salehpour said he identified engineering problems that affected the structural integrity of the jets and claimed Boeing employed shortcuts to reduce bottlenecks during the 787 assembly process, his attorneys said in a release. ...
Related...
Boeing's long fall, and how it might recover
www.seattletimes.com
... The intense backlash against Boeing after the near catastrophe aboard an Alaska Airlines 737 MAX in January wasn't a reaction to an isolated manufacturing error but to a yearslong decline of safety standards.
The arc of Boeing's fall can be traced back a quarter century, to when its leaders elevated the interests of shareholders above all others, said Richard Aboulafia, industry analyst with AeroDynamic Advisory.
"Crush the workers. Share price. Share price. Share price. Financial moves and metrics come first," was Boeing's philosophy, he said. It was, he said, "a ruthless effort to cut costs without any realization of what it could do to capabilities."
To drive down costs, Boeing chose to aggressively confront first its workforce and then its suppliers rather than partner with them. It left both, Aboulafia said, "angry and alienated."
Today Boeing's leaders are tepidly admitting that this shareholders-first, cut-costs, workers-be-damned strategy was flawed. But, for two decades, it worked.
Boeing's leaders delivered gushers of cash to shareholders through stock buybacks and dividends " $68 billion since 2010, according to Melius Research " rather than investing in future all-new airplanes. ...
Executives concede strategy was flawed
Belatedly, Boeing's current leaders, overwhelmed by criticism, mockery and outrage since January, have finally admitted publicly that some key strategies they pursued for decades were flawed. ...
[good dive into Boeing's problems]
@#22 ... The problem at nearly all major corporations; share price over service/employees/investment. ...
I agree.
But allow me to add another aspect to that. ...
It is not just share price, but the quarterly profits.
How can a company invest in long term planning when Wall Street seems looks at quarterly profits as The Gauge?
That seems to set up the scenario for MBAs to take over companies, with the results we are seeing of late with Boeing.
The rich now own a record share of stocks (January 2024)
www.axios.com
... About 93% of U.S. households' stock market wealth is held by the top 10%.
Why it matters: This stat " first spotted in the FT " is a crucial bit of context to keep in mind amid the heavily hyped surge of smaller retail investors who flocked to the stock market during and after the COVID crisis.
Details: While it's true that a record high 58% of American households do own stocks via mutual funds or as individual shares, in the aggregate the amount of stock most of these folks own is tiny. ...
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