March 18, 2024

We can’t continue to be passive as our systems crumble around our feet. Bad things happen when the canaries in the mine start chirping.  

‘); googletag.cmd.push(function () { googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-1609268089992-0’); }); document.write(”); googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.pubads().addEventListener(‘slotRenderEnded’, function(event) { if (event.slot.getSlotElementId() == “div-hre-Americanthinker—New-3028”) { googletag.display(“div-hre-Americanthinker—New-3028”); } }); }); }

Boeing, Airbus, and other worldwide aviation companies have execution issues at all levels. Daher, a French aviation company’s CEO Didier Kayat said at a recent press conference:

“After COVID-19, where has the workforce gone?  In the future, economic historians may explain what happened.  We see behavioral changes, a new relationship to the concept of work.” 

Graphic: Crew with logs for construction of Alaska Central Railroad, Camp Johnston, September 17, 1905.

Evans and Anderson, Wikimedia Commons.org. Public Domain.  

There is a shortage of qualified people willing to work everywhere. Dedication to the concept of work, the commitment employees are willing to give, and the sacrifices we all used to take for granted can no longer be assumed. The consequences are monumental:

  1. Safety is compromised
  2. Our standing in the world is deteriorating vs. countries that don’t seem to have our “lazy” genes.
  3. Our military can’t find enough qualified candidates to serve.  
  4. Our limitations are dictating our choices.  
  5. Attacks on our historical anchors of success threaten our existence.
  6. We are handing the means to destroy us to our economic, military, and political enemies. 

‘); googletag.cmd.push(function () { googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-1609270365559-0’); }); document.write(”); googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.pubads().addEventListener(‘slotRenderEnded’, function(event) { if (event.slot.getSlotElementId() == “div-hre-Americanthinker—New-3035”) { googletag.display(“div-hre-Americanthinker—New-3035”); } }); }); }

Problems can be seen everywhere: Dozens are injured after a Boeing jet has a mechanical problem. A tire falls off a Boeing 777. The door plug comes off in flight on a Boeing 737-9 Max. A Boeing 737 Max 8 runs off the runway in Texas. A United flight en route to Florida from Houston made an emergency landing after flames erupted from its left engine. Other examples occur on a near-daily basis.  

The issue is systemic. Airline and aircraft maintenance organization executives make that clear:

  • Triumph Chairman Daniel Crowley says, “The problem is a change in the workforce makeup—and we certainly have that coming out of the pandemic, where companies like Spirit AeroSystems and Boeing and others have had a large influx of new employees.”
  • Boeing Senior Vice President Ihssane Mounir says, “The airplane is the teller of truth.”
  • Boeing’s Doug Ackerman said, “OEM studies for production defects are not finding any new failures that need new fixes. Rather, it carries out long-established details that confound new employees and contractors.”

What allows people to treat work so cavalierly today? What’s happened to starting at the bottom and working your way up? Why are the traditions of starting a family and buying a house a low priority today? The answers are of paramount importance to us all.  

Every generation goes through the same cycles:

  • Childlike
  • Maturing
  • Self-sustaining
  • Peaking
  • Retirement

Something has interrupted those cycles necessary to maintain our established systems and provide for the next generation. Although it would be easy to blame the nonsensical decisions made due to COVID four years ago, COVID was nothing more than an event that accelerated changes already underway. They started during the Clinton years. 

Are DEI initiatives at the root of all this? A dear friend provided her answer: