Maybe If They Showed an Interest in Building Planes

It turns out that one of the problems that Boeing has building planes is that their workforce is fleeing for the exit.

This is not a surprise.  Boeing has made it clear that they are in the business of manipulating their stock prices to benefit senior management, not building aircraft.

The repeated debacles, and the repeated outsourcing of core technologies, has made it clear that management does not value their technical expertise.

It's no wonder that they are leaving:

Boeing Co. will put its battered engineering reputation on the line again this week when its Starliner spacecraft blasts off from Florida with a load of supplies for the International Space Station.

The mission is a do-over of a 2019 trip that almost ended in calamity, and a dress rehearsal for the Boeing capsule's first flight with astronauts later this year. If successful, it would narrow the gap with an ascendant rival, SpaceX, and answer the latest space-faring feats by the billionaire founders of Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic.

A tour de force by Starliner might also help distract from a potential problem Boeing is facing back on earth: An exodus of some of the company's most experienced engineers that threatens its rebound from a bruising run that includes the grounding of its 737 Max jets after two fatal crashes and the plunge in global air travel amid the spread of Covid-19.

………

More than 3,200 engineers and technical workers have left the company’s Seattle airplane manufacturing hub since the start of last year, about 18% of the union that represents them, with only a scant number added behind. In all, Boeing is aiming to cut 23,000 employees — from its executive committee to the factory floor — through layoffs, buyouts and retirement initiatives it launched last year as it racked up record financial losses.

The engineers departed an employer that had shifted away from the bet-the-company ethos that gave the world the 747 jumbo jet and the Apollo era's Saturn rocket. Over the past decade, cost-obsessed Boeing executives wowed Wall Street by plowing more than $40 billion into share buybacks. The strategy made Boeing the best performer in the Dow Jones Industrial Average for a span, but left the manufacturer ill-prepared for leaner times and new competitive threats.  

The strategy made them unable, and unwilling to invest money in new products.

McDonnell, a company which had one [failed] civilian project in its whole history took over Boeing, and resulted in a company being run by finance guys, as opposed to engineers, and finance doesn't make anything, it just loots.

Until Boeing kicks the looters out, it will not find success.