Tag: Boeing

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Boeing sends layoff notices to hundreds more

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Boeing says involuntary layoffs will affect hundreds of workers in engineering. (GeekWire Photo)

The Boeing Co. signaled that hundreds of employees involved in aerospace engineering in Washington state and other locations will be laid off starting in June.

The job cuts, reportedly due to begin on June 23, come on top of earlier rounds of voluntary and involuntary layoffs that have unfolded over the past year. Boeing Commercial Airplane’s employment figures have fallen by just over 10 percent since the start of 2017. Last month, Boeing approved voluntary buyouts for 1,500 machinists and 305 engineers, and also issued 245 involuntary layoff notices to take effect in May.

The newly announced layoffs should start taking effect on June 23, according to a widely cited memo from John Hamilton, vice president of engineering at Boeing Commercial Airplanes.

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Boeing’s 737 MAX 9 jet makes first flight

Boeing 737 MAX 9
Boeing’s first 737 MAX 9 jet takes off on its first test flight from the company’s plant in Renton, Wash. (Boeing Photo / Craig Larsen)

The newest sibling in Boeing’s 737 family, the MAX 9, made its first flight today from the company’s assembly plant in Renton, Wash. – 75 years after the Renton plant opened and 50 years after the first 737 took off.

The 737 MAX 9’s maiden flight began at 10:52 a.m. PT and ended a little less than three hours later, after Boeing’s test pilots put the plane through a series of test maneuvers that ranged from Washington’s Olympic Peninsula to the Spokane Indian Reservation. You can find a recap the flight on Boeing’s website.

Today’s takeoff marked the beginning of a flight test schedule that will continue for months. First deliveries of the MAX 9 are scheduled in 2018.

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Zunum Aero has big plans for electric planes

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Artwork shows Zunum Aero’s hybrid electric airplanes in flight. (Zunum Aero Illustration)trans

Four years after its founding, Zunum Aero is finally going public with a plan to build hybrid electric airplanes that could revolutionize service to regional airports in the 2020s.

“This is our coming out of stealth,” said Ashish Kumar, the founder and CEO of the company, which is headquartered in Kirkland, Wash.

Zunum, whose name comes from the Mayan word for hummingbird, aims to develop 10- to 50-seat aircraft that can pave the way for what Kumar calls a “golden age of regional travel.”

To follow through on that vision, the company has patented its concept and has won backing from the Boeing Co. as well as from JetBlue Technology Ventures, a subsidiary of JetBlue Airways.

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Pilots give a ’10’ to Boeing 787-10 Dreamliner

Boeing 787-10 takeoff
Boeing’s 787-10 Dreamliner jet takes off from the company’s South Carolina facility. (Boeing Photo)

The largest breed of its Dreamliner jet series, the 787-10, got a great review today after being put through its aerial paces for the first time in the skies over South Carolina.

“It performed exactly like we thought it would,” 787 chief model pilot Tim Berg said afterward.

Deputy pilot Mike Bryan seconded that opinion: “It was fantastic. … No squawks.”

Bryan gave a shout-out to Boeing’s support team, saying “there were two pilots in the front, but a lot of people behind us.”

The twin-aisle 787-10 is the first of the series to be assembled exclusively at Boeing South Carolina plant, and not at its assembly facility in Everett. It’s 18 feet longer than the 787-9, and 38 feet longer than the 787-8. Carrying capacity can range up to 330 passengers, depending on the configuration, compared to the 290-passenger maximum capacity of the 787-9.

Other than the length, passengers aren’t likely to notice much of a difference between the 787-9 and the 787-10: The two planes have 95 percent of their design in common, which is part of Boeing’s strategy to streamline development, operation and maintenance.

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Boeing exec named as deputy defense chief

Pat Shanahan
Boeing executive Pat Shanahan speaks at the opening of the company’s Seattle Delivery Center in 2015. (GeekWire Photo / Jacob Demmitt)

President Donald Trump today announced his intent to nominate longtime Boeing executive Patrick Shanahan as deputy secretary of defense, the Pentagon’s No. 2 civilian spot.

Shanahan, 54, currently oversees Boeing’s manufacturing operations and supplier management functions as senior vice president for supply chain and operations. He’s the chair of the University of Washington’s Board of Regents, a UW engineering grad and a member of the Washington Roundtable.

His background also includes management roles for the 737, 747, 767, 777 and 787 commercial airline programs, as well as work with Boeing Missile Defense Systems.

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Boeing 737 MAX 9 rollout brightens the day

Boeing 737 MAX 9
Boeing’s first 737 MAX 9 jet makes a splash at the company’s Renton plant. (Boeing Photo)

The skies may have been gray at Boeing’s Renton final assembly plant today, but the mood was sunny – thanks to the rollout of Boeing’s first 737 MAX 9 jet.

The photo op for employees is one of the rituals for a new breed of airplane, and today’s event played out much like the ceremonies that accompanied the rollout of the somewhat smaller 737 MAX 8 in late 2015, right down to the overcast, rain-spattered setting.

Like the MAX 8, the MAX 9 is designed for greater fuel efficiency than Boeing’s previous generation of single-aisle 737 jets, which make up the world’s most widely sold class of airplanes.

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Boeing OKs buyouts for 1,800 union workers

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Boeing has approved the first wave of voluntary layoffs for union workers. (GeekWire Photo)

Boeing has approved buyouts for more than 1,800 union workers, marking the start of a new round of job reductions that’s expected to continue through the year.

The voluntary layoffs include 1,500 machinists and 305 engineers, representatives of the workers’ unions told GeekWire today. Boeing Commercial Airplanes is reducing non-union positions as well, but the company isn’t providing numbers for those classifications.

The company said in December that it would have to continue last year’s downward trend in employment to stay competitive with Airbus, its European aerospace rival.

Last year’s job reductions amounted to about 8 percent of the workforce in Boeing’s commercial airplane division, going from roughly 82,500 to a little more than 76,000 employees by the end of 2016. The reductions were achieved through voluntary and involuntary layoffs as well as attrition.

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NASA buys Russian space rides from Boeing

Image: Soyuz docking
An upgraded Soyuz spacecraft nears the International Space Station for docking. (Credit: NASA)

NASA has agreed to purchase at least two trips to and from the International Space Station on Russian Soyuz spacecraft, from an unlikely ticket-seller: the Boeing Co.

The arrangement follows through on a convoluted plan laid out back in January, and provides a cushion for the space agency in case Boeing and SpaceX can’t provide space taxis for NASA’s use by 2019.

Ever since the shuttle fleet’s retirement in 2011, NASA has been buying trips from the Russians at escalating prices. The latest purchase, for seats on Soyuz craft to be launched in 2018, amounted to $82 million per seat.

The per-seat price for the Boeing buy will be $74.7 million.

Boeing picked up the rights to the additional Soyuz seats as part of the settlement for a $320 million-plus debt owed by Russia’s Energia space company. Those debts were incurred while Energia subsidiaries were working with Boeing on the Sea Launch joint venture. (Boeing is no longer part of that venture.)

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Stephen Colbert dons Boeing’s spacesuit

Stephen Colbert
Late-night host Stephen Colbert strikes an astronautical pose. (Boeing via Twitter)

Let history record that America’s first late-night astronaut is … Stephen Colbert?

In a pre-recorded bit due to be broadcast tonight on CBS’ “Late Show,” Colbert wears the spacesuit designed for crews on Boeing’s Starliner space taxi and does his shtick at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, with Boeing’s Chris Ferguson as straight man.

“How does it feel to be the first honorary Starliner astronaut?” Colbert asks in one clip. “I’ve made it. This is what all of this comedy work has been leading up to: wearing a very tight jumpsuit with a really big inflatable butt on it.”

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How robots and humans get along at Boeing

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The robots that are part of Boeing’s Fuselage Automated Upright Build system work inside and outside a 777 jet fuselage during assembly. (Boeing via YouTube)

Automation isn’t just a job for the robots: It takes flesh-and-blood workers to make robotic manufacturing work, as shown in a new video about the machines that set fasteners on Boeing’s 777 jets.

Boeing’s Fuselage Automated Upright Build, or FAUB, works with operators and mechanics at the company’s plant in Everett, Wash., to do some of the heavy lifting for 777 assembly. So far, more than 40 jets have gotten the FAUB treatment.

The job begins when teams of mechanics move the panels that form the forward and aft sections of the fuselage into place. Pairs of robots, inside and out, move in unison to “drill and fill” the thousands of fasteners required to secure the panels.

In Boeing’s feature about FAUB, mechanic Mike Jennings says all that drilling and filling used to be done by hand – a task that was “really tough and stressful” on his back, neck, shoulders and arms.

Now Jennings is a robot operator – monitoring views from a camera mounted on the robot arm, maintaining the system and making tweaks to optimize performance.

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