Boeing completes Spirit AeroSystems acquisition
Boeing on Monday announced it has completed the acquisition of aerostructures firm Spirit AeroSystems, a move meant to give the planemaker more direct control over its manufacturing chain.
The deal includes Spirit’s 15,000 employees and all of its Boeing-related work, including fuselages for the 737 program and major structures for the 767, 777 and 787 Dreamliner. It puts Boeing’s largest parts supplier in-house and expands the company’s maintenance, repair and overhaul footprint, Boeing said in a press release. Boeing also acquired some of Spirit’s operations in Belfast, Ireland, which will now operate as an independent subsidiary named Short Brothers.
Spirit’s defense business was grouped into another new entity, Spirit Defense, an “independent supplier for the defense industry” that will operate as a “non-integrated subsidiary” of Boeing’s Defense, Space & Security division, according to the press release.
“While for many of us our day-to-day work won’t change, bringing together our companies strengthens our efforts to improve safety and quality throughout our factories, operations and supply chain,” Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg said in a letter to staff, including the former Spirit workforce.
The $4.7 billion acquisition, first announced last July, is among the many actions Boeing has taken to improve its production processes after the January 2024 blowout of a door plug aboard a 737 MAX operated by Alaska Airlines. The MAX fuselages are manufactured by Spirit, spun off into an independent company in 2005 when Boeing sold its Wichita, Kansas, plant as part of a larger effort to cut costs.
Also on Monday, Airbus said it concluded the acquisition of Spirit sites in the U.S., Morocco, France and the United Kingdom that make parts for the A220, A320 family and A350 programs. These include the production of A220 wings and fuselage parts in Belfast, and the production of A350 fuselage sections in Kinston, North Carolina.
Ortberg, during an October earnings call, said Boeing was already seeing improvements in the quality of Spirit fuselages, setting the company up well for its production ramp-up and the reintegration of the supplier.
“It certainly derisks the situation, and that’s good news,’’ said Richard Aboulafia, managing director at AeroDynamic Advisory, a Michigan-based consultancy. “Boeing can’t build planes without these guys.”
