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Boeing has ousted the CEO of its troubled space and defence division.
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Ted Colbert III, who took over Boeing Defense, Space & Security in 2022, has been temporarily replaced by the division’s chief operating officer, Steve Parker, while the company looks for his replacement. The move comes as Boeing tries to course correct under new CEO Robert “Kelly” Ortberg.
“At this critical juncture, our priority is to restore the trust of our customers and meet the high standards they expect of us to enable their critical missions around the world,” Ortberg wrote in an email to employees announcing one of his first major changes since taking over as CEO of Boeing on 8 August.
“Working together, we can and will improve our performance and ensure we deliver on our commitments.”
Boeing’s space operations have seen an embarrassing setback recently with the stranding of a group of astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) following technical issues with the company’s Starliner spacecraft.
The astronauts, who arrived at the ISS in June, were meant to stay for a week but will end up returning in February, eight months after lift-off, on a spacecraft operated by rival SpaceX.
Starliner successfully returned to Earth empty earlier this month, crucially, NASA reported no issues with its manoeuvres, with all 27 working thrusters performing as expected and the spacecraft following a “perfect trajectory” home.
Boeing’s wider reputation had a lot riding on the spacecraft’s success following the mid-air blowout of a door plug on board an Alaska Airlines MAX 9 in January. That incident significantly came after two MAXs crashed in Indonesia in 2018 and Ethiopia in 2019, killing 346 people and leading to claims there was a poor safety culture at the planemaker.
The company was also last month forced to delay testing of its 777X, slated to be the world’s largest twin-engine wide-body when it begins operations, after a key component – said to be a structural component between the engine and the airframe – was found to be faulty.
Boeing last week announced a slate of austerity measures to shore up its bottom line as around 33,000 members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers at several of its locations in Washington state, Oregon, and California went on strike.
The planemaker had chalked up a loss in the second quarter of calendar year 2024, despite US$16.9 billion in revenue. Its commercial airplanes division lost US$715 million for the quarter and defence, space and security lost $913 million, while global services made an $870 million profit.
