Boeing has a fascinating history. A few highlights.
Founded in Seattle, Washington as the Pacific Aero Products in 1916 by lumber baron William E. Boeing and Conrad Westervelt to manufacture the B&W Seaplane
Renamed the Boeing Airplane Company in 1917.
Merged four small airlines it operated into United Airlines in 1931.
Aircraft manufacturing is separated form transportation business in 1934. The spin-off companies became United Airlines and United Technologies.
During World War II, Boeing and its partners worked together to produce 98,965 aircraft, including the B-17 Flying Fortress representing nearly 28 percent of America’s total aircraft production.
In 1952, I flew across the Pacific Ocean in a Boeing 377 Stratocruiser operated by Pan American World Airways.
Over time, Boeing acquired a number of smaller manufacturers and emerged as the preeminent aircraft manufacturer of the 20th Century.
Then disaster struck.
Meet the Competition
The Douglas Aircraft company and the McDonnell Aircraft Company thrived during World War II, then took different paths afterward. Douglas, building on the reputation of is DC-3—the most famous passenger aircraft of the era, continued to build passenger planes. The careers of the DC-4 and DC-5 were brief, but the DC-6 and DC-7 became airline workhorses. In 1958, Douglas produced the DC-8, it’s first jet powered passenger aircraft.
McDonnell, following World War II focused on military aircraft such as the Phantom, the Banshee, the Demon and the voodoo. The F-4 Phantom II was a mainstay for the U.S. Air Force during the Vietnam War.
But all was not well with the two companies, Boeing’s biggest competitors. Here’s what Wikipedia says:
The two companies were now major employers, but both were having problems. McDonnell was primarily a defense contractor, without any significant civilian business. It frequently suffered lean times during downturns in military procurement. Meanwhile, Douglas was strained by the cost of the DC-8 and DC-9. The two companies began to sound each other out about a merger in 1963. Douglas offered bid invitations from December 1966 and accepted that of McDonnell.[22] The two firms were officially merged on April 28, 1967 as the McDonnell Douglas Corporation.
McDonnell Douglas was a going concern for three decades. But in the 1990s, two big problems dragged it down in the 1990s. The end of the Cold War brought a reduction in defense contracts. The Pease Dividend for the country was bad news for McDonnell Douglas. In the passenger airplane market, Airbus was competing directly with McDonnell Douglas and producing better products.
Facing strong headwinds, McDonnell Douglas did what it had done in the past—found another company to merge with, and this time it was Boeing.
McDonnell Douglas Acquires Boeing
McDonnell Douglas was a smaller company that was in financial trouble. Its market share in passenger aircraft was collapsing. Its military business was going stale. It was, in every way, an inferior company to Boeing except in one important regard. The McDonnell Douglas executives were better boardroom warriors than the Boeing executives.
McDonnell Douglas was run by salesmen and bean counters who worried about profits. Boeing was run by engineers who worried about manufacturing great airplanes.
The poor geeks at Boeing never had a chance.
Boeing is Transformed
The McDonnell Douglas merger occurred in 1997. I wasn’t aware of it at the time. But when, in 2001, the Boeing headquarters was moved from Seattle to Chicago, I took note of that. I remember reading the explanation for it; getting closer to our customers, the spin masters said.
That wasn’t true. In fact, the new leadership at Boeing—the successful usurpers from McDonnell Douglas, wanted to get away from Seattle and all those engineers—those people who just cared about making airplanes.
As the last two decades have played out, Boeing has changed. In the first great unraveling of the company, it made a complete hash of building a new airplane. In a another chapter of the story, airline passengers died. And in a weird kind of cliffhanger ending I’ll provide you with, there was a suicide.
Or was it?
Anon.
Ridge