Spirit's 2020 acquisition of the A220 wing and fuselage factories in Northern Ireland and Morocco are its biggest bet on a future diversified away from Boeing's commercial airplanes. The company is in the midst of negotiations with Airbus on those contracts, which predate its ownership, and are today, along with its A350 work, operating at a loss through the end of 2025, according to regulatory filings.
Spirit's 2020 acquisition of the A220 wing and fuselage factories in Northern Ireland and Morocco are its biggest bet on a future diversified away from Boeing's commercial airplanes. The company is in the midst of negotiations with Airbus on those contracts, which predate its ownership, and are today, along with its A350 work, operating at a loss through the end of 2025, according to regulatory filings.

Airbus A220 work still core to Spirit AeroSystems’ future

Avatar photoJon Ostrower·
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In his final weeks as chief executive, Tom Gentile on September 7 declared its contracts for Spirit’s carbon fiber composite work on the 787, A350 and A220 “not sustainable” and said it had entered into negotiations with Boeing and Airbus to rework the agreements that have left it underwater.

Related: Spirit AeroSystems settles back into Boeing’s orbit

Spirit concluded a revised agreement with Boeing in October, but now has to negotiate a similar comprehensive deal with Airbus. “This is an item of utmost urgency for me personally, and I will be — if not leading — very deep in these conversations and discussions,” said Spirit’s new interim CEO Pat Shanahan on the company’s November 1 third quarter earnings call.

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Jon Ostrower
Jon Ostrower is Editor-in-chief of The Air Current, where he leads coverage of the global aerospace and aviation industries. Prior to launching TAC in June 2018, Mr. Ostrower served as Aviation Editor for CNN Worldwide, guiding the network’s global coverage of the business and operations of aviation. Mr. Ostrower joined CNN in 2016 following four and a half years at the Wall Street Journal. Based first in Chicago and then in Washington, D.C., he covered Boeing, aviation safety, and the business of global aerospace. Before that, Mr. Ostrower was editor of FlightBlogger for Flightglobal and Flight International Magazine covering the development of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner and other new aircraft programs from 2007 to 2012. He is also an instructor at the University of Southern California in the Viterbi School of Engineering's Aviation Safety and Security program. Mr. Ostrower, a Boston native, graduated from The George Washington University’s School of Media and Public Affairs with a bachelor’s degree in Political Communication. He is based in Seattle.
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