Boeing to move 2,000 jobs from Wichita, Kan.
January 5, 2012
WICHITA, Kan. • Boeing Co., for decades the brand that helped support Wichita’s claim as the aviation capital of the world, announced Wednesday that it will shut down facilities in the city by the end of 2013 and send work to plants in three other states as it deals with defense spending cutbacks.
The closure will cost more than 2,160 workers their jobs and end the firm’s presence in an area where it has been a major employer for generations.
The decision was not a surprise, as Boeing said in November that it was looking at closing the Wichita plant. But it still drew an angry response from Kansas lawmakers who helped Boeing land a lucrative Air Force refueling tanker project in February and had expected thousands of jobs to come to Wichita with it. Instead, the work will go to Boeing’s facilities near Seattle and Oklahoma City.
“Boeing’s announcement is that things have changed,” U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran said. “Well, the only thing that really has changed in my mind in the last year is Boeing now has the contract. When they made the commitments, they didn’t.”
The company, whose defense operations are headquartered in Hazelwood, began looking at closing the plant at the same time the Pentagon was trying to prevent $500 billion in automatic, across-the-board defense budget cuts over 10 years in the wake of the failure by a bipartisan congressional supercommittee to agree on $1.2 trillion or more in deficit reductions.
The cuts in Wichita are not expected to have an impact on Boeing’s production or jobs in the St. Louis region.
Wichita officials had hoped the number of jobs at the facility would increase after Boeing won the contract worth at least $35 billion to build 179 Air Force refueling tankers. Modification work on the planes was expected to generate 7,500 direct and indirect jobs with an overall economic impact of nearly $390 million cheap pay day loans.
Boeing said 24 Kansas-based suppliers for the refueling tanker project will still provide parts as planned.
“In this time of defense budget reductions, as well as shifting customer priorities, Boeing has decided to close its operations in Wichita to reduce costs, increase efficiencies and drive competitiveness,” Mark Bass, vice president and general manager for the Boeing Defense, Space and Security facility in Wichita, said in a statement.
The first layoffs in Wichita are expected in the third quarter. While the Seattle area will build the tanker, engineering and modification work on it will move to Oklahoma City and future aircraft maintenance, modification and support will go to San Antonio, Texas.
Oklahoma will get about 800 jobs and San Antonio will gain 300 to 400 jobs, Bass said. The company will move 200 tanker jobs to its plant in Washington while moving 100 support jobs, primarily engineering, now in Washington to Oklahoma City.
Boeing said it will continue to have a significant impact on the Kansas economy and its aerospace industry. The Chicago-based company spent more than $3.2 billion with 475 Kansas suppliers last year. Kansas is the fourth-largest state in its supplier network, it said.
But that wasn’t enough for lawmakers like U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts, who said Boeing had promised as recently as February to remain in Wichita if it landed the tanker contract. “Today’s announcement by Boeing’s leadership is hugely disappointing to me, but more importantly to the thousands of workers whose livelihoods are affected by this decision,” Roberts said.
Boeing has had a facility in Wichita since it bought Stearman Aircraft Co. in 1929.