Airplane fuselages bound for Boeing’s 737 Max production facility await shipment on rail sidings at their top supplier, Spirit AeroSystems Holdings Inc., in Wichita, Kansas, on Dec. 17, 2019.
Nick Oxford | Reuters
Boeing supplier Spirit AeroSystems will furlough some 700 workers as a strike by machinists at the planemaker enters its sixth week, a spokesman for the supplier said Friday.
Spirit AeroSystems had been scrambling to cut costs after more than 32,000 Boeing machinists walked off the job Sept. 13 after overwhelmingly rejecting a tentative labor deal with Boeing.
Boeing and the machinist union remain at an impasse.
“If the strike continues beyond November, we will have to implement layoffs and additional furloughs,” spokesman Joe Buccino told CNBC on Friday.
The roughly 700 workers are assigned to the 777 and 767 programs for Boeing, for which Spirit has built up “significant inventory,” Buccino said. Spirit workers on Boeing’s best-selling 737 Max are not affected, he added.
Boeing is in the process of acquiring Spirit. Reuters earlier reported Spirit’s latest furloughs.
