LMI Aerospace to close one of two Wichita plants

LMI Aerospace will close one of its two facilities in Wichita early this fall, citing a decline in work and cost pressures.

The closure of its sheet-metal fabrication plant at 2621 W. Esthner will affect 36 employees and temporary workers.

The plant, near South Meridian and Orient Boulevard, is expected to close by the end of September.

Officials of the St. Louis-based company said Wednesday that the closure will not affect its larger facility at 2853 S. Hillside, which machines aircraft parts.

They said the bulk of work at the Esthner plant has been on older commercial widebody, business and regional jet programs. That work has slowed considerably, they said.

The remainder of that plant’s work is not enough to sustain a separate operation, they added, and will be moved to the company’s plant in Mexicali, Mexico.

“With customer demand on these platforms declining significantly, and in a competitive pricing environment we had to make the difficult decision to close this operation and move its remaining work,” LMI Aerospace Chief Operating Officer Joe DeMartino said in a statement Wednesday.

LMI said it will work with employees to find them positions elsewhere in the company as well as provide job search and career counseling services. Workers at the Esthner plant who can’t find employment within the company will be laid off in phases over the next four months, LMI spokeswoman Amy Horton said Wednesday.

“Our priority will be if we can place Esthner employees to Hillside, we will do that,” Horton said, adding that those employees will have to have the right skill set.

She said at least two employees from the Esthner site have already begun work at the Hillside facility, which has 110 employees.

Horton said the company is “not really in a position” to talk about which aircraft programs at the Esthner site were on the decline.

LMI’s customers include aircraft manufacturers such as Boeing and Gulfstream and large, Tier I suppliers such as Wichita’s Spirit AeroSystems.

The decision to close the Esthner plant comes nearly two months after LMI reported a $1.8 million loss on $87.3 million in revenue in the first quarter of 2016, which ended March 31.

Last year, the company undertook a restructuring that included job cuts and the closing of two engineering offices and combining others in Washington.

It operates 22 sites in the U.S., Mexico, the United Kingdom and Sri Lanka.

This story was originally published June 29, 2016 at 9:41 AM with the headline "LMI Aerospace to close one of two Wichita plants."