The technical and logistical nightmare that manifested itself in a two-and-a-half-year
delay of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner cost the company not only development money and market value, but credibility among its customer base and the industry at large. Only Scott Carson himself and a few insiders know whether or not it also cost the 63-year-old his job as head of Boeing’s commercial airplanes business, but the choice of former Integrated Defense Systems (IDS) head Jim Albaugh to assume his role appears to reflect something of a shift in management philosophy if not a conscious move by the brass in Chicago to entrust the division to a more technically rooted individual.
On paper at least, Albaugh brings to Boeing Commercial Airplanes the engineering background Carson did not and, perhaps, the thinking goes, a set of skills better suited to steering a technically troubled program through the final stages of its preparation for first flight and subsequent certification. In fact, Boeing Company CEO Jim McNerney stressed for the record that “the decision to retire was Scott’s,” but the chief executive did seem to project a sentiment that the shakeup presented an opportunity of sorts.
