Boeing to leave Wichita

SEATTLE – Boeing Co. confirmed Wednesday that it will close its Wichita, Kan., plant by the end of 2013, as had been rumored for weeks. The news, a body blow to aviation manufacturing in Kansas, was delivered directly to employees at an all-hands meeting.

The U.S. Air Force refueling tanker work that Boeing promised to Wichita during the intense competition for that contract will instead be done in its factories in the Puget Sound region.

About 2,100 Wichita employees will lose their jobs, beginning “early in the third quarter of 2012,” the company said. Most jobs being moved will go to San Antonio and Oklahoma City.

Winning the tanker contract a year ago was seen in Kansas as preserving Boeing Wichita’s future. In 2010, Boeing said a tanker win would add 7,500 direct and indirect jobs in Kansas.

But the company has decided to install the military systems on the tankers near the assembly line where the airframes will be built in Everett instead of in Wichita.

Boeing has not decided where in the Puget Sound region exactly that work will be done. It will most likely be either in Everett or Seattle.

The company said Wednesday that its Washington factories will have a net gain of just 100 jobs from the planned closure of its defense plant in Wichita. The shift will add about 200 jobs in Washington, but about 100 jobs doing work on military and government VIP jets are at the same time moving out of Seattle to Oklahoma City.

Boeing blamed the closure on the maturing of government defense contracts and the winding down of programs.

“The site does not have enough sustainable business on the horizon to create an affordable cost structure to maintain and win new business,” its statement said.

“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,” said Mark Bass, vice president of the Boeing defense division’s Maintenance, Modifications & Upgrades division. “We will begin program transitions in the coming months, with the complete closure of the site scheduled for the end of 2013.”

Aside from the tanker contract, other defense work will also leave Wichita. The Kansas facility currently maintains and modifies a fleet of government jets, including Air Force One and smaller jets used by the top military brass. It also maintains and constantly upgrades the country’s aging fleet of B-52 bombers.

Boeing’s former commercial airplanes parts plant in Wichita – now owned by Spirit AeroSystems – makes the fuselages for the 737, the nose-and-cockpit sections of all Boeing jets including the 787 Dreamliner, and the engine casings and struts for all jets except the Dreamliner.

Yet Boeing’s statement Wednesday that it “values its long-term partnership with Kansas, and we will continue to work … in support of a robust aerospace industry in the state” will be no comfort to its employees as it prepares to exit the city that still calls itself the “Air Capital of the World.”