Boeing chief executive Kelly Ortberg today will tell US senators that the company has significantly improved the quality and safety of its products, while stressing the airframer’s strategic importance to the US economy and its industrial base.
“Boeing has made serious missteps in recent years – and it is unacceptable,” Ortberg said in written testimony prepared ahead of his planned 2 April appearance before the US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation. “We have made sweeping changes to the people, processes and overall structure of our company.”
Ortberg, a respected longtime industry executive who was previously CEO of Rockwell Collins and its corporate successor Collins Aerospace, succeeded David Calhoun as Boeing chief in August last year with a mandate to invigorate a seemingly stalled turnaround plan started under Calhoun’s predecessor Dennis Muilenberg.
Ortberg took over Boeing’s reins as the company was reeling from the January 2024 in-flight blow-out of a mid-cabin door-plug on an Alaska Airlines 737 Max 9 – an event that, while not seriously injuring passengers or crew, cast a spotlight on its quality problems and prompted a wave of fresh inquiries from regulators, safety inspectors and lawmakers.
Senate Transportation Committee chair Ted Cruz called Ortberg to Washington to testify at a hearing scheduled to start today at 10:00 local time. Called “Safety First: Restoring Boeing’s Status as a Great American Manufacturer”, the hearing is to “examine steps Boeing has taken to address production deficiencies and safety issues identified after the Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 incident last year”, the committee says.
FlightGlobal reviewed a copy of Ortberg’s written testimony to the committee. It will be his first time testifying as Boeing CEO before a House or Senate committee; Calhoun and Muilenburg had been hauled before Congress several times to address Boeing’s missteps in recent years.
“I moved to Seattle because I believe our leadership needs to get closer to the people designing and building our aircraft,” he says in his testimony.
Calhoun had taken heat for commuting by private jet to Boeing facilities from two distant homes. He also shifted Boeing’s headquarters from Chicago to Arlington, Virginia, positioning it closer to decision makers in Washington, a relocation criticised by some observers as reflecting less focus by Boeing on its commercial aviation roots in Seattle.
In his testimony, Ortberg will tell the committee Boeing has made progress in addressing issues flagged by the Federal Aviation Administration during an audit conducted last year.
Those issues relate to “reduction of defects, enhancing employee training, simplifying processes and procedures, and elevating our safety and quality culture”, Ortberg says. “The impact of our efforts is already evident to our airline customers based on their feedback about the improved quality of our aircraft.”
His testimony also stresses Boeing’s broader importance to the USA, citing the company’s win, announced on 21 March, of a Department of Defense contract to develop a next-generation fighter for the US Air Force.
“We play a crucial role in the US economy and national security, as evidenced by the US Air Force’s recent selection of Boeing to build the world’s first sixth-generation fighter jet – the F-47.
”As the nation’s largest exporter, Boeing has helped support 1.8 million American jobs and contributes $84 billion annually to the US economy,” Ortberg will say.
