Boeing's exit shakes 'Air Capital of the World'

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The crowd gathered at the local headquarters for Boeing was euphoric. The company had just won one of the largest military contracts in history. Thousands of the resulting jobs, Boeing had promised, would be headed here, to the sprawling manufacturing complex where residents had been building airplanes for generations.

''It's good for Kansas, it's good for Wichita, and it's a great day to be alive here and to profess victory,'' said Senator Pat Roberts, part of the political team that had spent a decade battling on behalf of the company. ''Every once in a while, the good guys win.''

That celebration last February was supposed to have confirmed this city's enduring status as the ''Air Capital of the World.'' But less than a year later, on Jan. 4, Boeing executives solemnly gathered here for another announcement. The jobs would not be arriving after all, they said. Instead, the company would shut down all of its local operations by the end of 2013.

Barring some unexpected act of salvation, this is how Boeing leaves Wichita, after eight decades as one of its biggest employers and most prestigious brands: in a trail of broken promises and bitter recriminations.

For most of the United States, this is just one more plant closing, just 2,160 more lost jobs in a Midwestern city. But the exit has been another painful blow to the city of Wichita and the airplane manufacturing industry that has sustained it, the sudden reversal of fortune only adding to the feeling of betrayal.

After waves of layoffs and threatened departures by the plane makers, there is a growing fear that this city, like so many other manufacturing centers, is at risk of losing its identity as one of those places in the United States where people make things and are paid well for it.

David Robertson, who has worked at Boeing for 35 of his 54 years, following his father into the business, said he suspected that when the jobs headed elsewhere, his employer would miss the commitment and expertise built through company clans like his.

''What did we talk about at supper?'' Mr. Robertson asked. ''We talked about planes. You go to a place where people don't have that history, where people haven't been doing it for generations, and to them it's just a job.''

Wichita was a fading cow town when a few eyes-to-the-skies businessmen helped transform it into the largest city in Kansas and a major aviation manufacturing hub. Cessna, Beech and Lear are a few whose names still grace planes made here. The city still makes almost half of the general aviation airplanes produced in the world. And Wichita is where presidential jets go for tuneups.

Some believe the departure of Boeing will be damaging only symbolically because the company sold off its much larger commercial division here, now called Spirit Aerosystems. But others, worried about an eroding identity and a declining share of the market, ask whether this time is different.

''This is not a cyclical thing,'' said Bob Brewer, president of the local chapter of the aerospace engineering union. ''This isn't Boeing cycling down. This is Boeing cycling out.''

Boeing, which is based in Chicago, anchored itself to the community when it took over locally based Stearman Aircraft in 1929. With a focus on building larger planes for commercial travel and military use, Boeing gained a reputation for generous compensation and opportunities for career growth.

Today, a typical airplane worker in Wichita is paid about $71,000 a year, about 80 percent more than the average income in the city, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, Missouri.

A Boeing employee for four decades, Steve Rooney, who runs the local machinists' union, joined the company just as his father and grandfather had. His daughter worked at Boeing as well, until she was laid off several years ago.

''How can you tell people, 'Learn the trade, get involved, there is a future here?''' Mr. Rooney asked. ''Is there?'' He nodded his head and let the question linger.

This scene - a major local airplane maker departing while citing costs - almost played out a year ago. Hawker Beechcraft was on the verge of moving to Louisiana before the company agreed to take a smaller incentive package to remain for at least a decade, embracing what the company calls ''the stay and make it work strategy.''

W.W. Boisture Jr., the chairman and chief executive of the company, which cut its local work force by nearly half, said the choice had been between ''a very attractive economic offer'' and ''a multigenerational work force that has been committed to this company for decades.'' He did not pretend that the decision had been easy.

Though employment in airplane manufacturing in Wichita dropped to 29,000 from 42,000 in 2008, accounting for more than half the lost jobs during that period, there are some positive signs. Airbus, the European rival to Boeing, expanded the office it opened in the city. Spirit has been increasing production. Last week, Bombardier Aerospace announced it was expanding its Learjet site. But it is Boeing's departure that dominates the conversation.

For residents, the message seemed unequivocal before the $35 billion contract to build aerial refueling tankers was secured. ''Tanker win would bring 7,500 jobs, $388 million to Kansas,'' one Boeing news release declared.

But when the company concluded that it was prohibitively expensive to stay in its enormous facility executives deflected charges of deceit by saying that the issues had not been anticipated.

Representative Mike Pompeo, a Republican in Congress who is investigating whether the company had planned to close the factory even as it had given assurances that the jobs were headed to the city, as union leaders have charged, dismissed the explanation as ''incomprehensible.''

Mr. Roberts, a Republican and part of the congressional delegation that fought for the contract, called the episode a bitter lesson. ''They broke their promise - not just to me but to the men and women who have worked for them for 80 years,'' he said.

A Boeing spokesman, Jarrod Bartlett, said executives would not discuss the departure because ''we're still trying to work through everything.'' The company has emphasized that it spent $3.2 billion with 475 Kansas suppliers last year and that those relationships would continue.

As shift workers streamed out of aviation factories last week, Debbie Humble, 46, said that even though her job at Spirit felt secure, she had been unnerved by the recent developments. ''You never thought you'd see Boeing leave,'' she said. ''They were the biggest thing out here.''

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