Log-in here if you’re already a subscriber
Holiday Special: The Air Current is offering two months of Business Individual subscription for just $50 with no automatic renewal. Click here to get TAC/Intel (our new real-time intelligence feed), gift link sharing, complimentary access to PDF copies of Special Reports and other benefits.
The Air Current since its inception has followed the struggles and now demise of Wichita, Kansas-based Spirit AeroSystems. Boeing and Airbus officially closed their complex transaction with the aerostructures giant on Monday morning before the stock market opened, ending trading of the company’s shares after 19 years.
Spirit’s creation in 2005 by Boeing’s divestiture of its operations in Kansas and Oklahoma is now widely recognized as a massive strategic blunder. Embedded in the relationship between the pair are fundamental lessons for the broader industry, which live at the intersection of operational culture, the costs of industrializing advanced technology at rate and their corrosive effects on safety and quality.
We offer an essential reading list to fully understand the trajectory of this relationship and how the industry arrived at this point with Spirit’s now-concluded reintegration into Boeing and Airbus.
2023
- May 2: Inside the strained union of Boeing and Spirit AeroSystems
- June 1: Boeing’s CEO nixes the idea of acquiring Spirit AeroSystems
- Aug. 23: Boeing and Spirit grapple with newly discovered 737 Max quality issue
- Nov. 3: Spirit AeroSystems settles back into Boeing’s orbit
- Nov. 3: Airbus A220 work still core to Spirit AeroSystems’ future
2024
- Jan. 24: 127 Days: The anatomy of a Boeing quality failure
- Mar. 1: Spirit AeroSystems in parallel strategic talks with Boeing and Airbus
- Mar. 26: U.S. airlines, fed up, forced change in the Boeing C-suite
- Apr. 25: Boeing wants Spirit AeroSystems before it picks a new CEO
- June 30: Boeing agrees to acquire Spirit AeroSystems in $8.3 billion strategic reversal
- Aug. 6: Live Updates: NTSB Alaska 1282 Investigative Hearing
- Aug. 9: Flight 1282’s postscript is prologue for Boeing’s Kelly Ortberg
2025
- Sep. 9: Airbus CEO: A220-500 launch paced by program profitability
- Dec. 6: The last days of Spirit AeroSystems
Subscribe to Continue Reading
Our award-winning aerospace reporting combines the highest standards of journalism with the level of technical detail and rigor expected by a sophisticated industry audience.
- Exclusive reporting and analysis on the strategy and technology of flying
- Full access to our archive of industry intelligence
- We respect your time; everything we publish earns your attention

