Spirit AeroSystems will lay off 2,800 workers after Boeing 737 Max halt

Wichita’s largest employer, Spirit AeroSystems, announced Friday that it will lay off 2,800 workers due to uncertainty about the production of the Boeing 737 Max.

All 2,800 employees work in Wichita. The layoffs will be followed by further cuts later this month at the company’s Tulsa and McAlester, Oklahoma, locations, according to a news release sent out by the company.

Spirit may shed more jobs in the future, the news release said. The 2,800 workers represent more than a fifth of the company’s Wichita workforce, according to the Greater Wichita Area Partnership’s most recent numbers.

Hourly workers will start leaving the company Jan. 22 followed by salaried employees, who start leaving the company Feb. 7. All employees will receive compensation for the full 60-day notice period, according to a letter Spirit’s CEO sent to employees Friday.

The Boeing 737 Max has been grounded since March after two crashes killed 346 people in Indonesia and Ethiopia. Boeing has been working to get the jet back in the air and make it safer, but the timeline has been pushed back multiple times as more technical problems have been discovered.

Boeing posted a $3.38 billion quarterly loss last year and stopped production on the planes in December. Spirit, which makes over 70 percent of the Max, halted production at the start of the year.

“Reducing employment is a necessary step given the uncertainty of when production of the MAX will resume and the expected lower production levels when it does resume,” Spirit President and CEO Tom Gentile wrote.

“This is not the news I wanted to share, and I know it’s not the news you wanted to hear,” Gentile said.

Earlier this week, Gentile gave qualified employees the option to take a voluntary buyout, adding that it was “a first step” in cost-cutting measures the company is taking.

“It is an extremely difficult time for the workers at Spirit AeroSystems who have dedicated their lives to making this company a leader in aerospace,” said Cornell Beard, president of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers District Lodge 70 in Wichita.

“Machinists members and their families in this community have some tough decisions ahead of them,” Beard said in a written statement about the layoffs.

The Spirit announcement came the day after hundreds of pages of internal messages between Boeing employees was delivered to congressional investigators Thursday. The messages show Boeing employees mocked federal rules, talked about deceiving regulators and joked about potential flaws in the 737 Max as it was being developed, according to a New York Times report.