Boeing has agreed to buy a parts supplier it sold nearly 20 years ago for $4.7bn (£3.7bn) as it seeks to improve safety on its production lines after a panel blew off on an Alaska Airlines plane in flight earlier this year.
The under-pressure U.S. aircraft maker is buying Spirit AeroSystems, a supplier of fuselage and wing parts, as it seeks to improve the safety and quality of its manufacturing process.
Talks to buy back Spirit Airlines began just weeks after a door panel on a Boeing 737 Max 9 plane exploded in mid-air shortly after taking off from Portland, Oregon, in January.
An investigation by U.S. safety officials later found that four key bolts on the panel were missing. The National Transportation Safety Board said the bolts had been removed last year when workers at a Boeing factory in Renton, Washington, repaired damaged rivets.
The deal to build Spirit again in-house marks a shift away from Boeing’s policy of outsourcing key components for its planes. Spirit was spun out of Boeing in 2005 but still accounts for about 70% of all orders, with about 25% coming from Boeing’s biggest rival, Airbus.
“Reintegrating Spirit will fully align our commercial production systems, including our safety and quality management systems, and our workforce with the same priorities, incentives and outcomes centered on safety and quality,” Boeing President and CEO Dave Calhoun said in a statement.
Airbus will take over Spirit Airlines’ Northern Ireland operations, which manufactures wings and fuselages for the A220 jetliner. Spirit Airlines is one of Northern Ireland’s largest manufacturing employers, employing around 3,500 people across the country.
Around 40 percent of Spirit’s jobs in Northern Ireland are linked to production for companies such as Bombardier and Rolls-Royce, and Airbus has said it aims to sell some of these parts.
Boeing will pay Airbus $559 million in compensation to take over operations of four factories, including the Belfast plant.
Boeing said the transaction is valued at about $8.3 billion, including Spirit’s net debt. Spirit shareholders will receive $37.50 per share as part of the deal.
After newsletter promotion
It was revealed on Sunday that the US Department of Justice is preparing to indict Boeing. But plans to offer the plane maker a plea deal have infuriated families of hundreds of passengers who died in two deadly crashes five years ago, according to sources familiar with the matter.
Authorities have told families of passengers on Lion Air Flight 610 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, which killed 346 people, that Boeing has until the end of the week to decide whether to plead guilty and avoid a trial.
Lawyers representing the families accused the federal government of trying to cut “yet another sweet plea deal” with Boeing.
