Boeing faces a chorus of critics!

As a general rule, chief executive officers don’t go around calling for one another’s removal. For one, they tend to know one another and are often friends, especially if they work in the same industry. More important, those who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones, as the adage goes, and the CEO job is the epitome of a glass house.
Most executives are reluctant to say a public bad word about another company, even when it’s clear to the rest of the world that a particular company has blundered catastrophically. That’s what makes the
parade of criticism of Boeing Co management in recent weeks from some of the company’s biggest customers so striking.
Michael O’Leary, CEO of budget carrier Ryanair Holdings Plc, was the most direct in an expletive-laden rant on the company’s earnings call. Boeing executives are “running around like headless chickens,” unable to sell new aircraft or deliver the planes they have already sold in a timely fashion, O’Leary said.
“Either the existing management needs to up its game or they need to change the existing management,” O’Leary said.
Meanwhile, the 737 Max 10 — an extended version of the plane — has yet to be certified by the Federal Aviation Administration. If it still hasn’t garnered approval by the end of this year, tougher requirements are set to kick in that would require a significant reworking of the plane.
Ryanair is at an impasse with Boeing over a potential order for the Max 10 after a disagreement on pricing, so it has its own agenda. But Boeing needs the Max 10, if not an entirely new aircraft program, to compete with Airbus SE in the middle market. The latter is difficult to contemplate when the company is still burning cash by the barrel and sitting on a mountain of debt. The result is that Boeing is “losing market share hand over fist to Airbus,” O’Leary of Ryanair said.

—Bloomberg