The shareholders of the setback-plagued Boeing on Friday agreed to a remuneration package of almost 33 million dollars (29.4 million euros) for CEO David Calhoun. The amount of the amount, the highest annual remuneration ever for a top executive of the American aircraft manufacturer, is controversial as Boeing has to contend with a long list of technical problems. During the shareholders’ meeting, there was sufficient support for a reappointment of Calhoun, but he already announced in March that he will step down as CEO at the end of this year. During the meeting, Boeing’s top brass explained what the troubled planemaker is doing to improve the quality and safety of its planes after a door panel of an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 Max was blown away in January. Incidentally, Boeing announced that Calhoun waived a performance premium of almost $3 million after the incident with Alaska Airlines. Calhoun said the company is in the process of finalizing a 90-day plan for resolving the production issues. Safety watchdog Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) had demanded such a report after the Alaska Airlines door plug incident. According to the CEO, Boeing is still in the process of completing the acquisition of key supplier Spirit AeroSystems, but he did not give a deadline. Spirit makes fuselages for the Max planes and was a source of production errors, writes the American AP. Boeing has lost more than $23 billion, including $2.2 billion last year, since Calhoun took over as CEO in January 2020, according to AP. The large loss was mainly due to two fatal crashes involving Boeing 737-Max aircraft that took place in Indonesia and Ethiopia. Calhoun was on Boeing’s board at the time, but was not yet CEO. Boeing has fallen far behind European rival Airbus, the other major manufacturer of large passenger aircraft, in terms of sales and deliveries. “Our CEO was paid $33 million last year for failure,” said James McRitchie of CorpGov.net, an activist shareholder at the online shareholder meeting. CEO Calhoun announced in March that he will step down at the end of this year. Another shareholder demanded that Calhoun leave immediately. Steven Mollenkopf, the new chairman of Boeing’s board of directors, said the coming months and years are critical “as we take the necessary steps to regain the trust that has been lost in recent times.” He continued: “The world needs a healthy, safe and successful Boeing, and the board is going to make sure it gets that.” Pictured: Boeing CEO David Calhoun at an event at California Airport in 2022 (Photo: Shutterstock).
