Boeing’s 2025 to-do list: Improve corporate culture and supplier relations

Almost exactly a year ago, a door plug blew out of a Boeing 737 Max plane mid-flight. And the aircraft manufacturer’s year didn’t get much better from there.

CEO Dave Calhoun stepped down; a new leader, Kelly Ortberg, came aboard. In the fall, more than 30,000 workers went on strike and stopped production for nearly two months. And the company slashed about 17,000 jobs to cut costs.

In a message to employees and shareholders in October, Ortberg said the company had had “serious lapses in performance” and acknowledged that trust in the company had eroded — and that it had too much debt.

Many of the problems Boeing faced in 2024 did not begin in 2024.

David Slotnick, a contributing editor at The Points Guy, said the issues took root over 25 years ago, when Boeing merged with McDonnell Douglas.

“The argument goes that Boeing sort of adopted this accounting-first culture that existed at McDonnell Douglas, which similarly hurt that airplane-maker,” he said.

For years, Boeing leaders prioritized the company’s stock price, he said, more than the quality of its aircraft. 

Now, the company’s facing criminal charges over two fatal crashes of its planes, an investigation of the recent crash in Korea and months of fallout from that door plug incident.  

CEO Ortberg said in October that Boeing needs “a fundamental culture change.” Richard Aboulafia with AeroDynamic Advisory agrees.

“They need to restore those connections between people who build the jets and supervise the people who built the jets, and the people at the top,” he said.

Supply chain delays, he said, have hampered the company’s ability to deliver planes. So Boeing also needs to work better with its thousands of suppliers, Aboulafia said. 

“Basically, Boeing needs to go to these companies and say, ‘Hey, what will it take to get you to perform? And if we have to give you additional resources, so be it,'” he said.

There’s no shortage of demand for Boeing’s products from airlines, said Meghna Maharishi, an airlines reporter at Skift.

“Right now, they’re seeing a ton of travel demand, a huge boom in travel demand that is continuing to last. And they obviously want more airplanes, but they’re just not getting them at a fast enough rate,” she said.

That’s because there’s really only one other company that makes big commercial jets: Airbus. As Boeing has struggled in recent years, Airbus’ backlog of orders has grown.

So now, Boeing might have an opportunity to make up some ground on its competitor.

“What really matters is that they’re able to just make these planes consistently,” said Slotnick at The Points Guy.

After a year full of stops and starts in production, he said, Boeing wants to start delivering planes at a faster clip.

“And that’s obviously helpful if they can do it, but if they can’t do that in a consistent way, then it’s really going to be all for nothing,” he said.

Which makes getting its supply chain and workforce culture in order all the more important if Boeing wants to have a better year.