BOEING IS TO CUT 737 and 767 production rates and has forecast around 7,000 job losses for 1995, only six weeks after company chairman and chief executive Frank Schrontz predicted that the employment forecast would be "level or slightly down".
Admitting the dramatic effect of some recent order cutbacks, including those of Air France, Continental and USAir, Schrontz says that the job reductions would be higher than had been expected. "Since the beginning of the year, several customers came to us asking to postpone aircraft deliveries because of the continued softness of the airline industry," he adds.
Continental has postponed 40 orders for 737s, 757s and 767s and USAir did the same with eight 757s scheduled for 1996 delivery. Air France cancelled ten firm orders and options on Boeing aircraft.
Production of the 737 will drop from 8.5 to seven a month in November 1995, while production of the 767 will jump as planned, from three to four a month in April 1995, before falling to 3.5 in December 1995.
Boeing still intends to raise 747 production from two a month to three in the second half of 1996. Production of the 757 remains stable at four a month.
The rate cuts will mean job losses of 6,500 in the Washington area. In addition, some 800 jobs are to go at Boeing's Helicopter division in Philadelphia and around 500 jobs will be lost at the company's Wichita site in Kansas. Small growth in specialist areas will generate an additional 800 posts, but the latest round of cuts will cut Boeing employment from almost 126,000 at the start of 1994 to 110,000 this year.
Source: Flight International