Boeing pays $580M for Dreamliner parts plant

Boeing Co. said this morning that it will buy out Vought Aircraft Industries' North Charleston plant used to build pieces of the fuselage for Boeing's 787 Dreamliner airplane.

The company announced the deal to workers at an 8:15 a.m. meeting.

Scott Carson, president and chief executive of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, said in a statement the move will help "accelerate productivity" as the aircraft production increases.

The debut of the 787 has been delayed because of production woes and a labor strike.

"The financial demands of this program are clearly growing beyond what a company our size can support," Elmer Doty, president and CEO of Vought Aircraft Industries, said in statement.

In the sale, Boeing will pay $580 million and forgive advances Vought received from the aircraft maker.

The deal is scheduled to close by the end of September.

Aviation analyst Richard Aboulafia of The Teal Group in Fairfax, Va. told The Post and Courier last week that one reason the company would want to acquire Vought's local operation is to give it direct control of a key vendor as it scrambles to get the Dreamliner in the air. The initial test ride that was scheduled for last month was scrapped for undisclosed reasons, and it has not been rescheduled.

"I think they have to catch up pretty fast," Aboulafia said Wednesday.

The possibility of a sale of the Vought plant has created concerns in the Northwest, the longtime home to Boeing's aircraft manufacturing hub and the thousands of well-paid workers it employs.

The fear is that the deal would make it easier to steer a proposed second production line for the 787 to the Lowcountry rather than the Puget Sound area.

Boeing has said no decision has been made about a second line.

For more details, see Wednesday's editions of The Post and Courier.