Commercial aircraft manufacturer Boeing is in talks to acquire its parts supplier Spirit Aerosystems in an effort to course-correct the supplier’s compounding issues that played major roles in Boeing’s recent midair fiascoes, The Wall Street Journal reported. Spirit, which has no relation to Spirit Airlines, makes 737 fuselages among other airframe parts, and one of its factories supplied the faulty piece that caused the Alaska Airlines inflight blowout in January. It’s had its own internal shakeups over the last few years, including when it fired its CEO last fall and replaced him with a former Boeing exec. A Boeing acquisition would task the major manufacturer with ironing out all of Spirit’s quality issues in addition to its own—on a time crunch, since the Federal Aviation Administration gave Boeing 90 days from this week to draw up a quality-improvement plan. Spirit often ships defective parts to Boeing factories, The Wall Street Journal reported, and a full takeover of the supplier is Boeing’s last remaining move to ensure quality control.
Read it at The Wall Street Journal
