BUSINESS16
MUILENBURG: JASPER JUINEN/BLOOMBERG. JOHNSTON:ARCHIVEPHOTOS/GETTYIMAGESgoing to touch the part of the airplane impacted
by the engine and a couple of other improvements.”
The industry was in the midst of the greatest
boom of the jet age, as the combination of millions
of newly mobile middle-class travelers in Asia and
low interest rates prompted airlines to order planes
at a frantic pace. In the past decade, carriers have
taken delivery of single-aisle jets worth $442.2 bil-
lion—36% of all such planes manufactured in the
previous half-century, according to the aerospace
consulting firm Teal Group. It stretched their ability
to train and recruit pilots.
Boeing had long prided itself on the quality of
its training, dating to the College of Jet Knowledge
it established during the development of the first
successful commercial jet transport, the 707 in the
1950s. That plane was put through its paces by the
most famous of Boeing’s test pilots, Alvin “Tex”
Johnston, who wore specially made boots for each
new model and gleefully courted risk. In 1955 he
stunned Boeing executives by executing a barrel
roll in a 707 prototype over a crowd of onlookers at
a Seattle festival.
Decades later, the Boeing pilots are a tamer
bunch, though some are said to still be members of
the Quiet Birdmen, an aviators’ club dating to World
War I. They’re also more specialized. In addition to
the Boeing pilots who test new models, there are
others who train airline crews or write manuals.
But the company has been trying for years to
capture more of the commercial pilot training mar-
ket, forming a joint venture with a Warren Buffett-
owned company in 1997 that ended in 2002 and,
in 2003, creating a subsidiary known as Alteon,
renamed Boeing Training & Flight Services in 2009.
The moves prompted instructor pilots to form a
union they called the Lazy B Pilots Association,
rankling management and some of the test pilots,
who weren’t unionized.
The training unit introduced a points-based sys-
tem for its airline customers akin to the airlines’
frequent- flyer programs. Instead of providing
expensive simulator time—which can cost hundreds
of dollars per hour—for a set number of crews as
it previously had, Boeing offered points that could
be used for a combination of training for pilots,
maintenance technicians, or flight attendants. “It’s
like swapping fries for boiled potatoes,” Alteon’s
chief, Sherry Carbary, told the trade publication
FlightGlobal in 2007.
Carbary, now president of Boeing China,
warned of a training reckoning for the industry
amid the wave of new pilots and said it demanded
a single-minded response. “We must, as an indus-
try, find a way to lower the costs,” she said at aconvention in Orlando in 2007.
The effort didn’t sit well with some of Boeing’s
instructors. “We felt like shortcuts were being
taken and that the quality of training was being
sacrificed,” says Charlie Clayton, a former Boeing
instructor. The airlines, too, had “a vested interest
in getting pilots out and flying as quickly as they
can, as cheaply as they can.”
Tensions boiled over with a plan to use contrac-
tors, often retired airline pilots, to fly with crews for
initial training. In 2012 the trainers and manual writ-
ers voted 4 to 1 to join Boeing’s engineers’ union,
the Society of Professional Engineering Employees
in Aerospace. Managers made it known that the vote
wouldn’t help their chances at promotion, four for-
mer workers say. The next year, in the middle of
negotiations for a new contract for several dozen
pilots, managers delivered a bombshell: They were
moving the simulators to Miami, where Boeing
had a training center that had been part of the
by-then-shuttered joint venture with the Buffett com-
pany. Boeing said it was what customers wanted.
As the Max was in development, Boeing
squeezed the union in other ways, too, shipping
more than 3,900 jobs out of the Seattle area.
Among the first to leave Boeing as job insecurity
grew were experts in so-called human factors, sci-
entists and psychologists steeped in research of
how people interact with machines. Without their
input, says Rick Ludtke, a former cockpit designer,
“it was easier for the program leaders to drive their
wishes into the design teams. They just didn’t have
people who understood that you need to say no.”
The beefed-up Miami center wasn’t popular with
all customers, says Coker, the former chief training
pilot. Some objected to instruction from contractors
instead of full-fledged Boeing pilots. Other former
instructors say the Miami building was shopworn.
But there was a more worrisome consequence:
The move disrupted the informal relationships
among engineers and trainers in the Seattle area
who could easily convene at one of the simulators
to talk over designs. (Another type of simulator
known as an E-cab did remain in Seattle, employ-
ees say, but it was harder to schedule because of
the increased demand for it.) “When the simulators Johnston (left) during
a Boeing 707 test
in 1957○ Muilenburg