An actor deeply hurt by shareholders ready to fight

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Shareholders have a lot to fear. The company's shares lost 10% of their value after the crash, on March 10, of an Ethiopian Airlines jet, the second deadly crash of the company's successful aircraft . A Lion Air 737 Max crashed under similar circumstances in October. The second accident caused the global stranding of the 737 Max last month.
Boeing announced last week that its profits fell by 21% in the first quarter due to the crisis. Boeing has suspended its share buyback plans to maintain its liquidity.

Managing Director Dennis Muilenburg will begin the annual meeting with a minute of silence for the 346 people killed in the crash of Ethiopian Airlines and Lion Air in Indonesia last October, according to his remarks prepared by CNN Business. He will insist that Boeing give top priority to safety and he intends to say that the company was doing everything possible to find a solution. And he promises that the 737 Max will become the safest plane in flight once Boeing has solved the problem of the automatic safety feature that is at the center of both accident investigations.

"These enduring values ​​are at the heart of everything we do," Muilenburg said in his prepared remarks. "However, we know we can always be better, we have the responsibility to design, build and support the safest planes in the sky, and recent accidents have only intensified our commitment."

Among the shareholder votes at the annual meeting is a proposal separating the positions of Chairman of the Board and President and Chief Executive Officer, both of which are now assumed by Muilenburg. Boeing opposes this proposal.

The resolution predated the current crisis and at the annual meeting last year, a similar proposal was rejected with the support of only 25% of the company's shares. But two shareholder advisory companies recommended votes for the resolution this time around.

"Shareholders would benefit from the most robust form of independent control to ensure that the company's management is able to regain the trust of regulators, customers and other key stakeholders," said the report. one of these services, ISS, in a note claiming support for the measure. .

A small group of protesters braved cold rain and cold at the annual meeting. Most had large pictures of some of the people killed during both flights. One of them was holding placards saying "Boeing's arrogance kills" and "Prosecute Boeing and the leaders for manslaughter".

Questions remain as to whether Boeing (BA) did everything to make the planes as safe as possible. For example, four Boeing employees called a Federal Aviation Administration hotline to report damage to sensor wiring, CNN reported. And Boeing forced the airlines to pay extra if they wanted an alert allowing the pilots to know if two sensors were contradicting each other. After the accidents, the company said in a testimony before Congress that it would make this feature standard on planes in the future.

Muilenburg defended this earlier decision to include alert as an option in his prepared remarks.

"We do not offer optional security features," he said. "Each of our aircraft includes all the security features necessary for a safe flight."

Muilenburg reiterated that the company was approaching a hotfix. It made 146 flights on the 737 Max, totaling about 246 flying hours with the updated software. Last week, he told investors that he had personally performed some of these test flights.

The safety function forces the aircraft to lower the nose if a sensor detects that it is climbing too fast and that it may come off. Apparently, the sensor on both flights gave a false reading. Two weeks after the accident in Ethiopia, Boeing announced that the hotfix would add data from a second sensor that measures the aircraft 's horizontal tilt.

– Glen Dacy from CNN contributed to this report

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