Boeing (BA) has faced intense scrutiny in recent years following a series of high-profile accidents and mishaps. PR expert and CEO of Skyline Corporate Communications Scott Powell, joined TheStreet to discuss how Boeing could have better addressed the concerns of both passengers and investors.
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Full Video Transcript Below:
SCOTT POWELL: I think what Boeing should have done years ago is when they had the two mishaps in Indonesia and in Ethiopia, they really should have implemented a very strict audit and review of their quality control systems, looked at every plane that they had manufactured. And even if they were sold to airlines and conduct a thorough top to bottom safety check, that would have done a lot to both restore trust, but also to ensure higher levels of safety from these aircraft and perhaps these incidents with united, there was a LATAM flight that had an issue as well. Perhaps these incidents wouldn’t have occurred had Boeing done something like that years ago. I think they’re doing it now.
They’re, as we’ve seen, CEO Dave Calhoun announced his retirement at the end of 2024. Larry Kellner, the chairman of Boeing, resigned a few weeks ago. There’s a new chairman in place. And it sounds like he is implementing some of these checks to go through their manufacturing processes and really look at every step in that process and make sure that there are certain safety standards that are adhered to, that there are certain things that are not cut short or rushed. The FAA has also ordered the slowdown in terms of production of 737s so that Boeing is not rushing to build these planes. Hopefully that will ensure greater levels of safety and higher standards in terms of production.
So I think the new chairperson in place is doing the things the right way. It’s just unfortunate that it took all of these incidents in January, February and March and essentially all of the airline executives meeting with the board and forcing change that should have been done years ago. But it is nice to see that it seems like the new chairman is making these changes that are necessary to ensure higher levels of safety and also to restore investor and traveling public trust.
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REMY BLAIRE: And speaking of trust, you’ve touched upon the c-suite. So we stakeholder management involves both external and internal relations. And you touched upon the government with the FAA making sure that checks are in place. And we’ve seen how that’s affected production output as well. But when it comes to internal stakeholder management, we heard about the whistleblower when it comes to safety standards. You can imagine a huge organization like Boeing. There must be a little bit of concern for internal stakeholders. So how would you go about addressing that from an internal perspective?
SCOTT POWELL: If I were the CEO or the chairperson of Boeing, I would communicate through memos, through internal memos about taking ownership, number one, for what happened. Okay, admitting and this is, I think for most companies, when you make a mistake or when you cut corners and it’s discovered that you’ve done things like this, you own up to it. You admit the issue. You explain to your internal employees and external stakeholders what happened, explain the situation. Maybe they were under tremendous amount of pressure to get aircraft out the door because their customers needed more aircraft, because maybe there was more demand for flights, for travel season, things like that. Perhaps they were concerned about revenue growth and earnings growth. And sometimes there are quality controls that are overlooked or cut.
So I think explaining why these issues arose, what happened that created some of these safety lapses. So explain what happened. I think the internal employees will understand that and then explain what the company is doing to fix the issues. And I think the new chairperson has started doing that. I believe he has ordered an investigation, an overhaul of all the quality control systems. This should have been done years ago, but at least it’s being done now.
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