Once high-flying Boeing is now a corporate criminal

AT THE turn of the century Boeing launched an advertising blitz to show what a marvel of American manufacturing it was. Called “Forever New Frontiers”, it highlighted its pioneering work on some of the 20th century’s biggest breakthroughs, from passenger and fighter jets to space rockets and satellites. Coming a few years after its merger with McDonnell Douglas, a smaller rival, Boeing stood tall in the fast-consolidating aerospace industry.

How far it has fallen since. On July 7, the American government said Boeing had agreed in principle to plead guilty to fraud in connection with two deadly crashes by its 737 Max jets in 2018 and 2019. This latest frontier, its most disgraceful yet, makes it the corporate equivalent of a criminal. Looking back over the decades, it becomes clear that Boeing’s embrace of what were once the defining trends in American business have come back to haunt it.

First, its acquisition of McDonnell Douglas in 1997 was part of what The Economist then approvingly called “one of the great industrial upheavals of all time”: the hammering together of America’s fragmented defence industry into a few global Goliaths. Since then consolidation has been the name of the game across corporate America.