Boeing insider claims aviation giant is failing because profit-hungry executives are all working from home and slams DEI push at company for being 'anti-excellence'

A Boeing insider has claimed the aviation giant is failing because profit-hungry executives are all working from home and the manufacturer has become too fixated on DEI.

The anonymous source described Boeing as a 'company under caretakers' who have lost touch with its workforce.

The beleaguered aviation company is in the middle of a safety crisis related to its 737 Max jets, which was ignited after a door panel blew out aboard an Alaska Airlines flight.

Speaking to City Journal, the insider described how the executive suite at the Boeing's Arlington, Virginia, headquarters sits empty as the top brass shun the office.

'We just instituted a policy that everyone has to come into work five days a week—except the executive council, which can use the private jets to travel to meetings,' the source said.

'And that is the story: it is a company that is under caretakers. It is not under owners. And it is not under people who love airplanes.'

The individual also claimed the company has become obsessed with diversity and inclusion policies, which they deem 'anti-excellence.'

'The DEI narrative is a very real thing, and, at Boeing, DEI got tied to the status game. It is the thing you embrace if you want to get ahead. It became a means to power,' the source added.

'It is anti-excellence, because it is ill-defined, but it became part of the culture and was tied to compensation. Every HR email is: “Inclusion makes us better.” This kind of politicization of HR is a real problem in all companies.'

DailyMail.com has reached out to Boeing about the anonymous claims.  

Boeing's fortunes took a nose dive in the wake of the Alaska Airlines emergency on January 5, when a panel on the 737 Max 9 blew out mid flight in front of horrified passengers.

The disaster resulted in 171 of its fleet being grounded pending safety investigations and the Federal Aviation Administration capping production of the jets. 

Around $30 billion of market value was wiped out in a matter of days, while share prices have dropped 25 percent.

Boeing has also already had to shell out $160 million to the airline in 'initial compensation' due to the grounding and has been slapped with several lawsuits by passengers who were on board the flight at the time of the incident.

However, the Alaska Airlines incident was only the latest in a series of concerns surrounding 737 Max jets following two crashes involving the aircraft in 2018 and 2019. 

The first involved a Lion Air flight in Indonesia which crashed killed 189 people, with a second occurring just a year later when an Ethiopian Airlines flight went down killing 157.

The source said the scrutiny from the crashes resulted in a 'sweeping set of changes that caused huge turnover in talent' to the detriment of the company.

'Right now, we have an executive council running the company that is all outsiders,' the source explained.

'The current CEO is a General Electric guy, as is the CFO whom he brought in. And we have a completely new HR leader, with no background at Boeing. The head of our commercial-airplanes unit in Seattle, who was fired last week, was one of the last engineers in the executive council.'

However, CEO Dave Calhoun recently announced his intention to step down from the board at the end of the year as part of a management overhaul.

Calhoun plus the chairman of the board and the head of its commercial airlines business are all leaving amid the ongoing 737 MAX safety issues.

But this has not been enough to ease the insider's concerns.

'There is no visible center of the company, and people are wondering what they are connected to,' the source said.

'The workforce knows if you love the thing you are building or if it’s just another set of assets to you. At some point, you cannot recover with process what you have lost with love. And I think that is probably the most important story of all.'

Boeing's fortunes took another hit after it emerged that a whistleblower who was suing the aviation giant had died of an alleged self-inflicted gunshot wound in South Carolina.

The news wiped $4 billion off the company's value overnight, while stocks slumped to a five-month low after it was revealed that John Barnett was found dead in a hotel parking lot in Charleston.

Barnett, 62, had been in the middle of a deposition in a whistleblower lawsuit related to production of the 787 Dreamliner, according to his lawyer. 

The suit alleged under-pressure workers were deliberately fitting 'sub-standard' parts to Boeing 787s, and that brass were sweeping defects under the rug to save money.

But the insider suggested the problems with Boeing are not unique to the aerospace giant and they slammed the 'politicization of HR' through the pursuit of DEI.

'Boeing is just a symptom of a much bigger problem: the failure of our elites. The purpose of the company is now “broad stakeholder value,” including DEI and ESG,' the insider said.

'This was then embraced as a means to power, which further separated the workforce from the company. And it is ripping our society apart.'