Boeing’s commercial airplanes unit has named a new chief engineer

Boeing has named a new chief engineer, promoting the engineering lead at its commercial planes unit to oversee engineering and technology development efforts across the company, the U.S. aerospace giant announced on Wednesday.

Howard McKenzie, the top engineer at Boeing’s commercial airplanes unit, replaces Greg Hyslop, who assumed the role of chief engineer in 2019 and will retire in June, the company said.

David Loffing, 777X chief program engineer, takes over as vice president and chief engineer of Boeing’s commercial airplanes unit, the company added.

McKenzie steps into Boeing’s top engineering position at a time when no new commercial airplane programs are under development. Boeing Chief Executive Dave Calhoun has said the company may not design a new jetliner for at least a decade as it recovers from the COVID-19 pandemic and two 737 MAX crashes that led to that aircraft’s grounding, which was lifted in 2020.

Calhoun said Hyslop played an “instrumental role in strengthening our engineering organization,” positioning the company to adopt new digital, autonomy and sustainable technologies.

Reuters.com by Valerie Insinna in Washington and Abhijith Ganapavaram in Bengaluru; editing by Uttaresh Venkateshwaran, Will Dunham and Marguerita Choy