SI Online
Posted: December 18, 2009
Green Shoots Finally
The first flight of the 787 provided a nice break in the deluge of Boeing bad news. Let's use it to clear back the clouds of recent controversies and gain a little better perspective on the highly promising, yes, highly promising, state of the region's aircraft manufacturing sector.
Contrary to misimpressions created by the publicity about the decision to build an additional assembly line in South Carolina, the vast majority of Dreamliners will NOT be built there, but here. Boeing expects South Carolina to produce three 787s per month in 2013, compared with seven here. This would work out to 36 Dreamliners a year down south, and 84 up here. The balance certainly might change in the future, but it would take one heck of a swing for us to lose a healthy share of the 787 work.
To put those production numbers into added context, consider that through November of 2009, Boeing workers in Everett and Renton delivered 430 commercial airplanes, 394 more than the hoped for production down south.
And here's some added value in the numbers. With December still to go, 2009 production is on the same track as 2007, a banner year when 441 airplanes were delivered. In fact, in spite of the negative news that has surrounded Boeing in recent months, 2009 will wind up as the best or second best aircraft production year in the past nine years.
To get an idea of the financial impact of this type of production, Washington state tax records show that in the first half of 2009, the region's aerospace industry generated gross business revenues of $19.8 billion, up from $19.4 billion generated in 2007. Gross is not the same as net, but the figures show the sheer volume of money the sector pumps into our ecomony for wages, supplies and taxes.
So, as bad as the present recession is, it would be a whole lot worse if we weren't in the midst of a very healthy period for aircraft manufacturing, and future prospects are bright.
Boeing possesses orders for 840 Dreamliners, the best presale of a new commercial jetliner in history, and those orders are part of a record backlog of Boeing orders for all its jetliners valued at $270 billion. Looking farther out, it is predicted the world will need 12,000 new commercial aircraft over the next 20 years to keep up with the growth in world-wide air travel. Boeing estimates those airplanes will be worth about $3.2 trillion. That's the best market outlook for airplanes in the history of commercial aviation.
It's trendy to predict that the additional South Carolina production line means Boeing is outta here. It seems more likely to us that people will still be building airplanes around here when our kids are headed for nursing homes.
Boeing isn't the Boeing our parents knew, or the one we grew up with, but the size of the base is still big enough, aircraft manufacturing will remain a pillar of our economy for more decades than any of us will live.
The biggest cloud on our aerospace horizon isn't South Carolina. It's the average age of a Boeing production worker in Washington. That's 52. Right now our state's education system isn't ramped up to replace these workers when they start to retire ten years from now. But, that's a challenge for another day.
This is a time to celebrate the 787 and a test flight that was the brightest and biggest "green shoot" to finally brighten up our region's economic gloom.
