Boeing completes $4.7B acquisition of Wichita-based Spirit AeroSystems
The Boeing Company announced Monday that it has completed its $4.7 billion acquisition of Wichita-based Spirit AeroSystems, 20 years after selling off the supplier.
“This is a pivotal moment in Boeing’s history and future success as we begin to integrate Spirit AeroSystems’ commercial and aftermarket operations and establish Spirit Defense,” Kelly Ortberg, president and chief executive officer of The Boeing Company, said in a news release.
“As we welcome our new teammates and bring our two companies together, our focus is on maintaining stability so we can continue delivering high quality airplanes, differentiated services, and advanced defense capabilities for our customers and the industry.”
The acquisition of Spirit has been pending since June 2024, when Boeing announced that it would buy back the company amid pressure to improve quality control.
Spirit is Wichita’s largest employer, with about 12,000 workers.
According to the release, the deal includes all of Spirit’s commercial operations tied to Boeing planes, “including fuselages for the 737 program and major structures for the 767, 777 and 787 Dreamliner. It also includes commercially procured fuselages for the P-8 and KC-46.”
“The transaction also brings Boeing’s largest supplier of spare parts in house, expands Boeing’s global maintenance, repair and overhaul services footprint and adds to Boeing’s rotable, lease, and exchange portfolio with Spirit’s aftermarket businesses,” the news release says.
Boeing says about 15,000 workers at five Spirit plants will become part of the company. They include employees at Spirit’s commercial and aftermarket operations in Wichita, Dallas and Tulsa; Spirit’s Aerospace Innovation Center in Prestwick, Scotland; and portions of Spirit operations in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
The Belfast site will operate as an independent subsidiary called Short Brothers, a Boeing Company, the release says.
Spirit Defense will continue providing aircraft parts as an independent supplier “to ensure uninterrupted support for its customers” and will be a “non-integrated subsidiary of Boeing Defense, Space & Security, aligning for financial reporting and select enterprise functional and site support, but maintaining independent governance and operations,” the release says.
The announcement comes after the Federal Trade Commission last week cleared the way for the acquisition, with stipulations that Boeing divest Spirit’s operations that supply parts to Airbus and continue supplying competing defense contractors, according to The Seattle Times.
Spirit became a separate company in 2005 after Boeing sold it off to cut costs. After the sale, Spirit continued to be the primary supplier of Boeing fuselages, which are shipped to Boeing’s Seattle plant for assembly into completed planes, The Eagle previously reported.
The move to take back Spirit came after a door plug in a fuselage manufactured by Spirit blew out during an Alaska Airlines flight in 2024, triggering a Federal Aviation Administration review that found “multiple instances where the companies (both Boeing and Spirit) allegedly failed to comply with manufacturing quality control requirements,” The Eagle previously reported.
In a statement included in Monday’s release, U.S. Senator Jerry Moran said Boeing’s acquisition of Spirit “will help build bridges between Seattle and Wichita and bring new opportunities to the Air Capital.”
“I welcome Boeing back to Wichita and look forward to working with them to build a lasting relationship with the community and its workforce, as well as current and future suppliers, to continue building on the growth we have seen in recent years,” he said.
