When Kelly Ortberg landed within the chief government’s chair at Boeing final month the record of issues he needed to confront on the aerospace big was already daunting. Manufacturing of the 737 MAX passenger jet, Boeing’s most vital product, has been curtailed after a mid-flight blowout of a fuselage panel in January. Manufacturing of the bigger 787 Dreamliner has additionally slowed down owing to supply-chain issues. Plans to launch the even larger 777X are years not on time. Add to that losses at Boeing’s often profitable defence division and an embarrassing software program failure that left astronauts piloting its Starliner spacecraft stranded on the Worldwide Area Station and a few could marvel why Mr Ortberg took the job.
