Now that it appears that Boeing will NOT take the bailout, it's going to get interesting very fast. Supposedly, 70,000 VLO offers were sent out corporate-wide, meaning that they're deciding now on just how far they will cut, which will be deep. Look at the production numbers announced by Calhoun, and then think of how many fewer people it will take to produce a handful of airplanes in Everett, and a a slightly bigger handful in Renton, at least when they finally start the line again.
Someone else here got roasted for an email they saw asking "how many" to get the job done, and I think that similar emails are going out throughout the company. For example, nobody in my job category got a VLO offer, but there is no way they are going to maintain current head count, so it's seems quite logical to get an idea of exactly who is going away on the upcoming ILO/Round 1.
The "New Normal" would seem to be "Boeing Light", as envisioned by GE. Calhoun is behaving exactly as one would expect of a General Electric product, and doing the same kind of things he learned as a protege of Jack Welch. I got burned yesterday over my support for the Seattle Times editorial urging Boeing to go back to it's origins and get rid of the GE style management and dysfunctional board, and I'm wondering why?
Calhoun seems to be looking at it from purely a numbers perspective, and to a degree, that is necessary. But, the way it seems like they're going to do it is to protect the top of the organization, give a big wet and sloppy BJ to the shareholders, and slam Boeing workers and supply chain employees as the "only" way to get those precious numbers.
Wouldn't it make sense to have a CEO actually from Boeing as opposed to an outsider that only sees numbers? Sure, Muilenberg was a lifer, but he bought into the "maximizing profit" mantra too, making him more like Calhoun than not.
A re-focus on engineering, and the selection of a CEO obsessed with making the best product available makes a lot more sense than what we have now, another profit over quality upper management team that treats the products we make like consumer appliances, which they are definitely not. Build the company's reputation back by once again making the best aircraft out there, not planes that need to be reworked and redesigned after they're sold, but right when they are accepted by the customer.
They need to clean house at the top and work down from there. We didn't OK the MAX..they did. We don't build c-ap airplanes like the scabs in SC, but upper management decided to take revenge on the IAM for daring to strike.
A lot of us are probably going to be gone in the near future, but Calhoun and Co. need to go first.