He will remain president and chief executive of the company's main airlines unit.
"It is critical that we take these necessary steps now to size the commercial airplanes business to support the difficult and uncertain environment faced by our airline customers," Alan Mulally, the chief executive of the commercial airlines unit, said in the statement.
Analysts anticipate that Malaysia's restructuring could extend to selling off its engineering, airport services or budget airline units.
* Westair Holding Inc., Fresno, Calif., announced management changes as a result of the merger of its two regional airline units, NPA Inc. and Westair Airlines.
For the airline unit, revenues rose 8.9percentto to $1.7 billion.
Boeing derives 60percentt of its revenue from its commercial airline unit, down from 85percentt in the early 1990's.
Since 2007, the company has said several times that it was considering a sale or a spinoff of American Eagle, its regional airline unit.
The company, owned by the UAL Corporation, also wants to eliminate thousands of flight attendant jobs as it transfers 30percentt of flight capacity to a new low-cost airline unit, the union said.
The parent company of American Airlines, AMR, said yesterday that it planned to shed its American Eagle regional airline unit, after an investor group called on the company to bolster its stock price by getting rid of some operations.
The airline unit's operating profit was in line with last year, and the percentage of seats sold on each flight by Swissair, which flies internationally, and Crossair, its regional counterpart, were higher than the industry average.
SAirGroup's airline unit, which owns all of Swissair and parts of Crossair, Sabena, TAP, LOT and other carriers, lost 155 million Swiss francs ($86.4 million) in the first half of 2000.
