Airbus to acquire Belfast factory in long-awaited Spirit Aero deal

Boeing 737 fuselages at Spirit AeroSystems factory in Wichita, Kansas.

Airbus has finalised an agreement to take some assets from Spirit AeroSystems, including a plant in Belfast that makes carbon wings for the A220.

The deal clears the way for the struggling US aerospace supplier to be acquired back by its former parent, Boeing.

The European planemaker will take over a facility in Kinston, North Carolina, for fuselage sections of the Airbus A350 model, as well as a site in France also making parts for the widebody plane. Other factories include the wing manufacturing site for the A220 in Belfast and a wing-component site in Prestwick, Scotland, according to a statement by Spirit.

Some portions of the deal are tentative, like the remainder of the Belfast site and a business in Malaysia, which Airbus will take over if no other suitable buyer is identified. The Airbus deal is a key part of a complex three-way transaction that reunites Boeing with Spirit, an operation that the US company spun off in 2005.

Airbus will receive a payment of $439m (€386.4m) from Spirit to take the assets, according to a release by Airbus. The planemaker will also provide Spirit with $200m (€176m) of credit lines to help the struggling manufacturer support the Airbus programs. Airbus said the financial accord won’t change its earnings outlook for this year.

“With this operation, Airbus aims to ensure stability of supply for its commercial aircraft programs through a more sustainable way forward, both operationally and financially, for key Airbus work packages,” Airbus said.

Airbus rose as much as 2.1% to €143.56 in Paris trading. The stock has lost 6.9% in value this year. Airbus reports earnings after the European close on Wednesday.

While Spirit has since become an important vendor to Airbus, it’s still Boeing’s largest single supplier. Boeing’s $4.7 billion acquisition, announced in July 2024, required Airbus to take over some operations or rely on its global rival Boeing to supply it with critical aircraft components.

Spirit AeroSystems, which makes the fuselage for Boeing’s 737 aircraft from its base in Wichita, has struggled financially for years. Both planemakers have provided it with hundreds of millions of dollars in funding to prop up its finances and keep parts flowing.

Boeing’s move to reacquire its former subsidiary was triggered by a near-catastrophic accident on January 2024 in which a fuselage built by Spirit lost a large panel during flight. That mishap led to a rolling crisis at Boeing, leading to a management shakeup, an ongoing quality makeover and federal limits on Boeing’s production that are still in place.

At the time of the deal’s initial announcement in July 2024, Airbus said it would pay $1 for the Spirit assets it was acquiring, and receive $559m (€492.1m) in compensation. Airbus said on Monday that the compensation amount has been adjusted to reflect revised transaction perimeters.

The facilities that Airbus is taking over are crucial the European planemaker’s aircraft programs, and have struggled to keep up with Airbus’s timetables to increase output. Chief Executive Officer Guillaume Faury said in February that issues at Spirit were putting pressure on the ramp-ups of both its A350 widebody and A220 single-aisle aircraft programs.

Spirit makes the central section panels for the A350 in Kinston, which are incorporated into the widebody’s fuselage in Saint-Nazare. In Belfast, it makes advanced composite wings for the A220. The Prestwick plant builds wing leading and trailing edge elements for the A320, Airbus’s top-selling jet.

Airbus is keen to ramp up output of the fuel-efficient and airy A220 model that it acquired control of from Bombardier Inc. for a symbolic one Canadian dollar in 2018. Under Bombardier, the program was years late and billions over budget, and Airbus has said it wants to cut costs and turn around the loss-making program by building 14 units a month by 2026.

Bloomberg