Aircraft

Spirit AeroSystems delivered the 5,000th Boeing 737 fuselage in a ceremony at the company’s Wichita site, Kansas last month. The aircraft, a 737-700, will be delivered to Southwest Airlines around mid-February.

Although production-rate information remains a closely guarded number, the Wichita assembly line is running at full capacity and expects to start building the latest model, the -900ER, from the second quarter of 2006. Fuselage Structures and Systems business unit vice-president and general manager Buck Buchanan declines to specify exact production numbers, but says “we ran at these rates pre-9/11, so they’re not foreign to us. They’re not higher than we’ve been before.”

This suggests rates up to the 28-a-month level, although in August 2001 Wichita set a record for delivering 30 fuselages in a single month.

The -900ER variant also marks the introduction of a new, flat aft pressure bulkhead that opens up additional seating capacity. Spirit expects to assemble the first of the flat bulkheads in the first quarter of 2006, which will then be sent to Boeing for static and fatigue qualification tests. The unit is expected to be offered as a standard option on the -800 and -900ER versions.

GUY NORRIS/WICHITA