Boeing agrees to buy Spirit Aerosystems as part of plan to enhance safety

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Boeing has agreed to buy Spirit Aerosystems, one of its major suppliers and manufacturing partners, as part of its plan to repair the planemaker’s badly damaged safety reputation.

the all stock deal, Boeing’s stock purchase for $4.7 billion, or $37.25 per share, was announced Monday after months of discussions between Boeing and the company it spun off in 2005. Boeing announced in March its intention to buy SpiritHe said the re-integration of companies would enhance safety.

The total value of the deal is approximately $8.3 billion, including Spirit’s reported net debt.

“We believe this transaction is in the best interests of the aviation public, our airline customers, Spirit and Boeing employees, our shareholders and the nation more broadly,” Dave Calhoun, Boeing’s president and CEO, said in a statement.

Spirit AeroSystems makes key parts of several Boeing models, including the fuselages of the 737 MAX. The parts are then shipped to Boeing factories for assembly. The company also makes parts for Boeing’s rival Airbus, although Boeing is Spirit’s largest customer.

The Boeing takeover would break up Spirit. Airbus said in a statement Monday that the European planemaker would buy the supplier’s “core business” related to Airbus for $1.

These activities include production of A350 fuselage sections in Kinston, North Carolina and St Nazaire, France, and A220 wings and fuselage in Belfast, UK, Airbus said in a statement. statementIt will receive $559 million from Spirit in compensation.

Spirit has had its own series of quality control problems in recent years, and Boeing has agreed to pay the company more money to try to improve Spirit’s quality and reliability issues, which have hurt Boeing’s production and reputation.

Sprit participated in January door stopper explosion On board an Alaska Airlines 737 MAX shortly after takeoff, leaving a large hole in the side of the plane.

Boeing said last week that two different groups of employees were assigned to work on the door seal, a part used in place of an emergency exit door. The first group of employees removed the door seal to address problems with screws made by Spirit AeroSystems. But Boeing employees Leaves were not born Which suggests that they removed the door stopper, along with the four screws needed to hold it in place, in order to do this job. So the second group of employees replaced it, not realizing that the screws were missing.

Several whistleblowers have come forward since the incident, including some Spirit employees and contractors. Last week, for example, a Whistleblowers A contractor for Spirit Aerosystems said it notified the company of wide gaps in a key part of its 787 Dreamliner planes that pose a “catastrophic” risk to passengers.

Spirit has been involved in other safety problems for Boeing. In 2023, it used a “non-standard manufacturing process” when joining parts of 737 MAX fuselages, prompting Boeing to halt deliveries of the planes. Earlier this year, a Spirit employee notified Boeing that two holes may not have been drilled exactly to Boeing’s requirements, which required Boeing to remanufacture about 50 yet-to-be-delivered aircraft.

The US Department of Justice is approaching agreement with Boeing, which would include corporate probation and a fine in exchange for a guilty plea to criminal charges, according to lawyers representing the families of victims of two fatal 737 MAX crashes, who harshly criticized the offer as a “sweetheart deal.”

This story has been updated with additional information.

CNN’s Chris Isidore, Diksha Madhok and Olesya Dmitrakova contributed to this report.