New boss slams excesses at Boeing

THE NEW boss of Boeing has revealed shocking executive profligacy running into tens of millions of dollars at the aircraft and defence giant under the leadership of his predecessor Phil Condit.

In a thinly veiled attack on Condit, who quit the US company last December, new chief executive Harry Stonecipher said a review of company costs 'found spending issues that I did not like'.

Stonecipher said the expansion of the company's executive airfleet and use of helicopters by directors had, since December, been 'done away with' saving the company 'tens of millions of dollars'.

Speaking from Washington DC where he is attempting to win back business from the US government which had been suspended under Condit, Stonecipher said: 'Some people did not know the difference between a meeting and a party.'

Of his management spending review, Stonecipher continued: 'We found cost elements that had nothing to do with building a product or designing it.'

The comments were taken as an attack on the famously extravagant lifestyle of Condit who used to tour the world with his wife in a customised, wood-panelled Boeing jet while running the company through a now disbanded 'Office of the Chairman'.

Condit quit as chairman and chief executive of Boeing after the company became engulfed in a procurement scandal which also cost the job of chief financial officer Mike Sears.

Stonecipher, 68, returned to run Boeing after 18 months in retirement in Florida having previously been the company's chief operating officer. Just a day after the award of $60bn (£32.6bn) worth of potential work to engine-maker Rolls-Royce and General Electric to power Boeing's new 7E7 aircraft, Stonecipher confidently predicted that he would announce the names of launch airline customers for the so-called Dreamliner ' within one to two months'.