Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) on May 15 questioned the impact of Boeing‘s [BA] proposed buy of Wichita-based Spirit Aerosystems [SPR], which supplies commercial and military programs, including the Airbus A350 airliner, Boeing’s troubled 737 Max and 787 Dreamliner, the Northrop Grumman [NOC] B-21 Raider future stealth bomber for the U.S. Air Force, Lockheed Martin‘s [LMT] Sikorsky CH-53K helicopter for the U.S. Marine Corps, and the Bell [TXT] V-280 Valor tiltrotor for the U.S. Army’s Future Long Range Assault Aircraft.
“In my view, the Defense Department ought to be at least encouraging me and others, in addition to the administration, to make sure that, if there is a merger, that the defense capabilities of Spirit is [sic] not somehow lost in the process,” Moran said at a hearing of the Senate Appropriations Committee’s defense panel.
DoD acquisition chief William LaPlante testified that, as is customary, the Pentagon is providing input to the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission on any collateral effects of the proposed acquisition and whether it should go forward.
“My assumption is that Boeing is almost exclusively interested in this [Spirit] for commercial manufacturing, and yet, in the absence of Spirit Aerosystems we lose a lot of defense capabilities,” Moran said at the hearing. “I have visited with four or five of the CEOs whose companies do work in defense with Spirit, and there’s a general feeling that ‘I don’t know where else we would go in the absence of Spirit doing what it does today.'”
Moran said that Spirit has 12,000 to 13,000 employees in Kansas.
Andrew Hunter said on May 15 that he recently visited Spirit.
“It was a great opportunity to visit Spirit, and [I] developed a deep appreciation for all the ways in which Spirit is contributing to a variety of Air Force programs across a number of our key prime vendors, in particular the manufacturing expertise that is resident there and the ability to leverage new production techniques that are very significant and important to our more cutting edge, newer weapons systems leveraged out of the commercial development, particularly the 787,” Hunter testified. “That is, I think, a key asset for the nation so we’ll work closely with Dr. LaPlante in terms of the department’s feedback to ensure that those capabilities are still able to be utilized in the best way possible.”
In 2005, Boeing’s commercial division spun off its Wichita operation, which was to become Spirit Aerosystems.
Spirit Aerosystems said on March 1 that it was in discussions with Boeing, which is still on the hunt for a new CEO to replace Dave Calhoun, who is to retire at the end of this year (Defense Daily, March 25). One of the candidates is Spirit CEO Pat Shanahan, who spent 30 years at Boeing, including leadership roles within its commercial airplanes and defense segments.
Shanahan led Boeing’s supply chain and manufacturing operations, before leaving the company in 2017 to become deputy defense secretary in the Trump administration.