New face of Boeing Jets looks to revive buyers’ trust in 737 Max aircraft

Days after Stanley Deal took the helm of Boeing Co.’s jetliner business last month, he was winging across the globe to meet with the airline bosses most shaken by the deadly crashes that have plunged the manufacturer into crisis.

Deal spent the Oct. 29 anniversary of the first of two 737 Max crashes with Rusdi Kirana, founder of Indonesia’s Lion Air. And Deal apologized in person to Ethiopian Airlines Chief Executive Officer Tewolde GebreMariam in Addis Ababa, the site of the second disaster. The accidents killed 346 people, prompting a worldwide grounding of the Max and raising troubling questions about Boeing’s design and testing of new aircraft.

“It has been a humbling and inspiring first week at Commercial Airplanes,” Deal wrote to employees in a Nov. 1 memo seen by Bloomberg. “The past few days have also been filled with emotion and a heavy heart.”