Moran suggests Boeing’s ‘lack of cooperation’ with FAA on 737 Max has prolonged issue
Kansas Sen. Jerry Moran suggested Thursday that a lack of cooperation by Boeing with the Federal Aviation Administration has prolonged the 737 Max grounding in the wake of two deadly plane crashes.
The senator also said he made sure President Donald Trump knew Wichita faces “significant challenges” after he was told the former CEO of Boeing “downplayed” the situation. The comments came before the senator toured Cox Machine Inc. in Wichita.
Moran told reporters that the Boeing 737 Max grounding and ongoing difficulties in the agriculture industry are the two most significant issues facing the Kansas economy.
“The thing that is most troubling to me and the thing that me and my team are working on every day is trying to figure out how we speed the process by which the 737 Max is returned to service,” Moran said. “I want the decision about whether the Max should be returned to service based upon science, based upon safety, not based upon any political considerations.”
Spirit AeroSystems announced Monday that is is offering voluntary layoffs to employees after Boeing suspended production of the troubled plane. Spirit is the city’s largest employer, and more than half of its revenue comes from building the Max fuselage. Additional companies in the Wichita area aviation supply chain may also be affected.
“Part of what was troublesome to me,” Moran said of a phone conversation with Trump last month, “was that Boeing seemed to be downplaying the significance of this. ‘Everything was O.K., Mr. President,’ or at least that’s what I read the then-CEO of Boeing had to say to the president.
“I wanted the president to know, one, that I don’t see it that way. Everything is not O.K. and there are significant challenges that are going to arise in Kansas, in Wichita, south-central Kansas, but across the county as a result of the continued grounding of the 737 Max.”
The senator also said he asked the president to have his administration explore opportunities for the Defense Department to contract with Wichita businesses affected by the grounding.
Earlier this week, Moran said, two Army generals viewing aviation research capabilities at Wichita State University suggested more partnerships with Wichita manufacturers.
Moran said that in a phone call this week with the new CEO of Boeing he emphasized “the need for Boeing to cooperate with FAA to get themselves in position to do all the things necessary to get the Max back to safety so it can be in the air again.
“I certainly heard the right things from Boeing in that regard, but the message is sooner rather than later. And there is certainly the suggestion that lack of cooperation by Boeing with the FAA has delayed a resolution to this issue.”
Boeing announced in December that it would suspend production of the 737 Max. Before it can return, it must gain the FAA’s approval. The commercial and defense aviation giant faces re-certification obstacles and a change in leadership.
“Boeing will continue to work with the FAA to support their requirements and their timeline as we work to safely return the Max to service in 2020,” a company spokesperson said in response to the senator’s comments.
Moran said he is working to find a way to speed up the return of the Max. He met with the FAA’s administrator this week for update.
“The indication was that things are moving better, faster, and certainly there was sympathy expressed and an understanding,” Moran said. “What I’m doing is just trying to urge, nudge, insist that everything happen as it can, again with caveat we don’t want to do anything that’s not safe.”
Help for workers
The voluntary layoffs at Spirit — and hundreds of involuntary ones at Textron Aviation, the maker of Cessna and Beechcraft planes — were also on the agenda at a Thursday afternoon meeting of Kansas state lawmakers at Wichita State University.
Rep. Elizabeth Bishop, D-Wichita and chairwoman of the South Central Legislative Delegation, questioned Chamber of Commerce president Gary Plummer on what’s being done locally to help displaced aircraft employees get retrained or start their own businesses.
“I think there are a number of people who may be interested in taking a buyout, taking money that they’ve saved as an employee and applying it to an entrepreneurship,” Bishop said. “Which I think is absolutely wonderful if it’s well thought-out and there’s been some mentorship and helping with a business plan . . . I hate to see people take a flyer (on a business) and it doesn’t pan out.”
Plummer replied there are local agencies, public and private, working on a community-wide response to the troubles in aviation and trying to keep skilled workers in Wichita.
Regarding Spirit, he said: “We’re encouraged by the fact that we think we have a temporary issue, not a restructuring of the economy like we saw back in 2008 and 2009, where we went through a pretty rough time in Wichita.”
He said the Kansas congressional delegation is working hard to help Boeing clear the regulatory hurdles it’s facing in getting the 737 Max recertified to fly.
On Textron, Plummer said the layoffs were a part of the regular business cycle for an aircraft company and aren’t too alarming. He said the company had finished the development of new planes. That cut the need for designers and engineers, but will increase demand for assembly-line workers as the company switches to production. Textron lobbyist Doug Scott confirmed Plummer’s analysis of the situation.
“It was being right-sized,” Scott said. “We had some development programs that were delayed or concluded, that affected primarily engineering staff.”
The company is currently hiring for 60 to 90 production jobs locally, Scott said.
Contributing: Dion Lefler of The Eagle
This story was originally published January 9, 2020 at 5:14 PM.