Despite Boeing 737 Max grounding, Spirit AeroSystems continues fuselage production
FOX Business’ Liz Claman reports the latest news from Boeing’s settlement with crash victims’ families, which amounts to $144,500 each.
Spirit AeroSystems is still making fuselages for Boeing's 737 Max jet, despite the aircraft being grounded since March.
The aircraft part-making company manufactures 52 fuselages for Boeing per month, despite the aerospace giant decreasing its output to 42 planes a month, after the Federal Aviation Administration grounded the aircraft. The FAA made the decision in the wake of two plane crashes that resulted in 346 people dying.
“What we agreed with Boeing was that we would stay at 52, because for us to go down, it meant that it would take us a very long time to come back,” Spirit AeroSystems CEO Tom Gentile said Thursday during the Kansas Economic Outlook Conference, hosted annually by the Wichita State University Center for Economic Development and Business Research, according to The Wichita Eagle.
He added that it's “going to be a longer-term impact than everybody first thought,” though he's hopeful due to “an incredible surge in orders” for aircraft with more than 150 seats.
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"Today Boeing and Airbus have a backlog of [orders for] 12,500 aircraft worth $2 trillion and it represents almost eight years of production,” Gentile said. “At Spirit, our backlog is about $48 billion, which is almost seven years of production for us.”
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The Associated Press contributed to this report.