Amid Whistleblower Complaints, Boeing Buys Spirit, Ending Outsourcing of Key Work on Planes (apnews.com) 35
Monday Boeing announced plans to acquire its key supplier, Spirit AeroSystems, for $4.7 billion, according to the Associated Press — "a move that it says will improve plane quality and safety amid increasing scrutiny by Congress, airlines and the Department of Justice. Boeing previously owned Spirit, and the purchase would reverse a longtime Boeing strategy of outsourcing key work on its passenger planes."
But meanwhile, an anonymous reader shared this report from Newsweek: More than a hundred Boeing whistleblowers have contacted the U.S. aviation watchdog since the start of the year, Newsweek can reveal. Official figures show that the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) whistleblowing hotline has seen a huge surge of calls from workers concerned about safety problems. Since January the watchdog saw a total of 126 reports, via various channels, from workers concerned about safety problems. In 2023, there were just 11....
After a visit from FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker to a Boeing factory earlier in the year, Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun agreed to share details of the hotline with all Boeing employees. The FAA told Newsweek that the number of Boeing employees coming forward was a "sign of a healthy culture".... Newsweek also spoke to Jon Holden, president of the 751 District for the International Association of Machinists, Boeing's largest union which represents more than 32,000 aerospace workers. Holden said that numerous whistleblowers had complained to the FAA over Boeing's attempt to cut staff and reduce inspections in an effort to "speed up the rate" at which planes went out the door...
Holden's union is currently in contract negotiations with Boeing, and is attempting to secure a 40% pay rise alongside a 50-year guarantee of work security for its members.
CNN also reports on new allegations Wednesday from a former Boeing quality-control manager: that "for years workers at its 787 Dreamliner factory in Everett, Washington, routinely took parts that were deemed unsuitable to fly out of an internal scrap yard and put them back on factory assembly lines." In his first network TV interview, Merle Meyers, a 30-year veteran of Boeing, described to CNN what he says was an elaborate off-the-books practice that Boeing managers at the Everett factory used to meet production deadlines, including taking damaged and improper parts from the company's scrapyard, storehouses and loading docks... Meyers' claims that lapses he witnessed were intentional, organized efforts designed to thwart quality control processes in an effort to keep up with demanding production schedules. Beginning in the early 2000s, Meyers says that for more than a decade, he estimates that about 50,000 parts "escaped" quality control and were used to build aircraft. Those parts include everything from small items like screws to more complex assemblies like wing flaps. A single Boeing 787 Dreamliner, for example, has approximately 2.3 million parts...
Based on conversations Meyers says he had with current Boeing workers in the time since he left the company, he believes that while employees no longer remove parts from the scrapyard, the practice of using other unapproved parts in assembly lines continues. "Now they're back to taking parts of body sections — everything — right when it arrives at the Everett site, bypassing quality, going right to the airplane," Meyers said.
Company emails going back years show that Meyers repeatedly flagged the issue to Boeing's corporate investigations team, pointing out what he says were blatant violations of Boeing's safety rules. But investigators routinely failed to enforce those rules, Meyers says, even ignoring "eye witness observations and the hard work done to ensure the safety of future passengers and crew," he wrote in an internal 2022 email provided to CNN.
But meanwhile, an anonymous reader shared this report from Newsweek: More than a hundred Boeing whistleblowers have contacted the U.S. aviation watchdog since the start of the year, Newsweek can reveal. Official figures show that the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) whistleblowing hotline has seen a huge surge of calls from workers concerned about safety problems. Since January the watchdog saw a total of 126 reports, via various channels, from workers concerned about safety problems. In 2023, there were just 11....
After a visit from FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker to a Boeing factory earlier in the year, Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun agreed to share details of the hotline with all Boeing employees. The FAA told Newsweek that the number of Boeing employees coming forward was a "sign of a healthy culture".... Newsweek also spoke to Jon Holden, president of the 751 District for the International Association of Machinists, Boeing's largest union which represents more than 32,000 aerospace workers. Holden said that numerous whistleblowers had complained to the FAA over Boeing's attempt to cut staff and reduce inspections in an effort to "speed up the rate" at which planes went out the door...
Holden's union is currently in contract negotiations with Boeing, and is attempting to secure a 40% pay rise alongside a 50-year guarantee of work security for its members.
CNN also reports on new allegations Wednesday from a former Boeing quality-control manager: that "for years workers at its 787 Dreamliner factory in Everett, Washington, routinely took parts that were deemed unsuitable to fly out of an internal scrap yard and put them back on factory assembly lines." In his first network TV interview, Merle Meyers, a 30-year veteran of Boeing, described to CNN what he says was an elaborate off-the-books practice that Boeing managers at the Everett factory used to meet production deadlines, including taking damaged and improper parts from the company's scrapyard, storehouses and loading docks... Meyers' claims that lapses he witnessed were intentional, organized efforts designed to thwart quality control processes in an effort to keep up with demanding production schedules. Beginning in the early 2000s, Meyers says that for more than a decade, he estimates that about 50,000 parts "escaped" quality control and were used to build aircraft. Those parts include everything from small items like screws to more complex assemblies like wing flaps. A single Boeing 787 Dreamliner, for example, has approximately 2.3 million parts...
Based on conversations Meyers says he had with current Boeing workers in the time since he left the company, he believes that while employees no longer remove parts from the scrapyard, the practice of using other unapproved parts in assembly lines continues. "Now they're back to taking parts of body sections — everything — right when it arrives at the Everett site, bypassing quality, going right to the airplane," Meyers said.
Company emails going back years show that Meyers repeatedly flagged the issue to Boeing's corporate investigations team, pointing out what he says were blatant violations of Boeing's safety rules. But investigators routinely failed to enforce those rules, Meyers says, even ignoring "eye witness observations and the hard work done to ensure the safety of future passengers and crew," he wrote in an internal 2022 email provided to CNN.
Well, it sorta worked (Score:5, Funny)
They did, at least, manage to speed up the rate at which doors went off the planes...
Re: (Score:1)
Hey! Look over here... (Score:5, Informative)
While this acquisition might be good in the long term, let's not forget that the door-that-blew-out that everyone talks about was a quality lapse *at the Boeing Factory*.
Seems like the timing of this acquisition is mostly about PR spin. Let's hope that the quality improves and that the gross margin is a little bit reduced to match. Mulally squeezed more out of the company than was sustainable.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
FAA needed to force a clean sweep
There is no reason to believe a knee-jerk "guilt by association" purge will solve anything.
by letting the stockholders they should do that or lose their corporate veil.
There is no mechanism in law for that, much less in the FAA's regulatory authority.
Re:Hey! Look over here... (Score:5, Insightful)
The cycle seems to be:
1) People create value-generating system (the business)
2) Locusts come in, suck as much profit out of system for themselves as they can, damaging or destroying it.
3) System fails, locusts walk away much wealthier.
4) Society is saddled with the costs.
Re: Hey! Look over here... (Score:2)
That sounds like the Private Equity playbook to me.
Re: (Score:2)
Sounds like what used to be Hewlett-Packard Company.
A succession of "loot and scoot" management.
Government / military want DEEP POCKETS in place (Score:2)
Boeing has to backstop the losses and lawsuits against its own airplanes. It is such a huge part of the US military defense industry, the government cannot afford to let Boeing fail.
The spun off company could fail due to lawsuits and put Boeing's defense contractor position in peril.
2008 financial crisis example (Score:2)
How Bank of America was 'encouraged' to take over one of the largest failed banks (Washington Mutual) to prevent even more banks from going under.
Boeing is too big to fail yes or no should be the discussion topic.
Re: (Score:3)
Sure, but this quality lapse only happened because of a Spirit quality lapse (bad fasteners that they have simply overpainted). In this regard, Spirit and Boeing fit very well together.
Re: Hey! Look over here... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You have to remember that separating Spirit into its own company was a deliberate part of the enshittification. It's so they can blame, at least some problems, on someone else. Reversing these structural changes designed to shield people and teams from accountability is unequivocally a positive thing.
But if the people buying Spirit are the same ones who sold it, the root cause of the problem is still there.
Re: (Score:2)
This is definitely not "PR spin". A whole host of quality issues are related to having this essential parts and component supplier that used to be a Boeing factory under separate management (and thus quality control), management that happens to be investment bankers.
Spirit AeroSystems was established in 2005 when Boeing spun-off its Wichita division to an investment firm. [wikipedia.org] Yeah, selling a core part of your manufacturing business to an investment capital firm is a great way to make some quick "profit" fatten
Re: (Score:2)
"It's a Boeing management problem, stupid".
Buying the outsourced company and placing it under inept Boeing management is NOT a solution to the problem.
They need to clean house with top management. Calhoun's "leaving" with a golden parachute at the end of the year isn't a solution.
Once Lockheed Martin took over Boeing's management, the problems started. Boeing stopped being run by engineers and started being run by bean counters.
That's the problem we have today.
Re: (Score:2)
MBA mentality drove Boeing to sell their Witchita and Oklahoma operations which became "Spirit Aerosystems" and now they just repurchased it. Imagine what would have happened if they'd kept it? No dead people, no scandals and now felony charges.
MBAs frankly are stupid as fuck.
50 year guarantee of work for their members? (Score:5, Interesting)
On the face of it that's a pretty crazy demand.
Re: 50 year guarantee of work for their members? (Score:4, Insightful)
What's crazy is our don't work don't live society when we have way less real work to do than we have people who need to eat.
Guaranteed employment is as close as American society can get to believing people have a right to life, ironic when so many have so much to say on the topic.
Now here come my three serial down votes...
execs worming their way out (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Spirit very much colluded on poor workmanship. The management there are to blame as well. Presumably a golden handshake, and a no-blame clause, is in the buyout deal as well.
Dear Boeing (Score:4, Funny)
CYA (Score:3, Insightful)
They are just buying up the "evidence",none of them want to go to jail.
Not going to be easy to acquire (Score:5, Informative)
Because Spirit was spun out from Boeing, they were an independent company. That means they sought customers as well.
This merger is going to be extremely difficult on Boeing and take a long time because another Spirit Aerosystems customer is Airbus. And you can bet there are going to be tug of wars between what Boeing gets and what Airbus will get (contracts and such ensure that Spirit will have commitments to Airbus).
Especially tricky because I believe the wings are manufactured by Spirit in Ireland. While that division doesn't make much money (I believe it's running at a loss making wings for Airbus), Airbus themselves know this and thus Boeing might wish to unload the factory to Airbus, but at what price. Airbus knows it doesn't make money, so they're going to offer a very low amount, maybe requiring Boeing to chip in money. Boeing, of course, doesn't want the plant and want to get as much money from Airbus as they can.
Then there's the whole Airbus 220 series issues, plenty of which were to be built at Spirit as well. And Boeing royally screwed that up - complaining when American decided to buch a bunch of Bombardier C-series (as they were known at the time) even though Boeing had nothing on the pipeline. The whole incident angered the Canadian government, Bombardier sold their aerospace division to Airbus (who set up a factory in Wichita, KS to get around the tariffs), and likely scuttled any chance of Boeing winning the Canadian contract for a next-gen fighter. It was rumored that the F-18 Super Hornet was the shoo-in and it was basically waiting for a signature when this whole thing came down and Canada went with the F-35 that they didn't really want due to costs, but at least it wasn't Boeing.
It's not going to be an easy merger and it's going to take years for it to resolve. Airbus isn't their only customer, and chances are, it's going to be a very messy move because I'm sure none of Spirit's other customers want the taint of Boeing.
Re:Not going to be easy to acquire (Score:5, Informative)
Spirit has already dealt with the Airbus “issue” - the Airbus related factories and assembly lines are to be sold separately to Airbus for $1, with Spirit also paying Airbus more than $500Million to assume the liabilities for those factories and lines as well.
Both of these deals will go through at the same time.
This will fix it (Score:2)
The power and quality of an independent contractor combined with the new QA and corporate oversight of Boeing.
Doors will never fall off planes again. ... Because the planes won't ever get far enough into the air for that to happen.
Not Cheaper. Not Faster. Bonus Time! (Score:2)
I've watched the outsourcing frenzy for decades - seldom seen it work well. Having two layers of management instead of one doesn't make it cheaper. Having lawyers arbitrate disputes doesn't make a resolution come faster. Or cheaper. Stashing all your engineering talent in a remote company is rarely an advantage, if ever.
The outsourcers of the world crow about cost savings, but all they really did was sacrifice quality to save money. Then with chests puffed with pride, they bonused themselves all the wa
The union wants a (Score:2)
I would like to support unions, but boneheaded demands like that are indicative of a break from reality. Workers arent priests, with some sort of divine protection handed down by the almighty. Neither are managers or executives, of course.
MBA heads are exploding (Score:2)
Who knew? Making plane parts IS the core competency for aircraft manufacture!
My Cynical Take (Score:3)
So with all of those "upsides", I was initially surprised that Boeing would throw all of that away. But then I remembered the account of a person who claimed to be a Boeing employee who went through the communication logs between Boeing and Spirit and revealed what they believed to have been the cause of the door plug failure. If Boeing owns Spirit, those official communication channels go away, so there's less evidence left behind for whistleblowers or regulators to find in the inevitable disasters of the future.
Whether I'm right or wrong, Boeing is giving up a lot to reverse course and in-source their scapegoat and I'm not convinced it's being done out of genuine concerns for quality.
Erosion of Trust (Score:2)
Statements like this are a major reason why trust has eroded so severely between citizens and our government. A truly "healthy culture" either wouldn't produce such poor quality in the first place or it would encourage complaints to be handled internally where they would be competently addressed. The fact that so many employees feel that the quality is bad and that their internal complaints are disco
crooks (Score:2)
In a world dominated by crooks, the only way to guarantee your supply chain and a quality product is vertical integration. Unfortunately, the rot at Boeing has gone pretty far, and its not going to be a cakewalk to fix it.
Maybe Musk can branch out into making airplanes.
Re: crooks (Score:2)
Now bring the HQ back to the plant (Score:2)