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From: Lance (Aviation Research)
Date: 23 Jul 2003
Time: 20:03:59
Remote Name: 66.82.48.1
In Wichita, KS they call them the Big Four. They are Boeing, Raytheon, Cessna and Bombadier. Together they employ about 45,000 people building aircraft. Today a good day for Wichita, which needs some good news and got it. 1000 people went back to work today as AirTrans is buying more 737-700's and 737-800's of which 75% of this aircraft is built in Wichita. Boeing’s 737-700's sell for between 47 and 55 million dollars each and 737-800's $57,000,000 and $64,000,000 each. This is good news since Airbus an EU subsidized manufacturer has made gains against the once Boeing’s nearly 100 percent market share. These new 737’s will have the most reliable GE engines as AirTrans goes after it’s rivals such as Jet Blue, Southwest and AmericaWest. All of which have been doing much better in this recession than the United, AMR, Continental and Delta bigger carriers with more infrastructure, debt and bureaucracy of size. Of course this good day as a down side. The downside being that over the past one year (May 2002-2003) 14% of such jobs were lost. Wichita a manufacturing niche city has seen a net loss of over 5400 jobs disappear recently affecting just about everything even including retail even though the city has had a 3% net gain in population and even greater new housing gain. Sedgway County's five largest employers are all manufacturing. Four of them are strictly aviation. The economic Development Association and Chamber of Commerce Research person told us that they were working on diversity of manufacturing in Aviation since 31% of Wichita is was manufacturing and today only 22%. Of that 56% is totally aviation only, 6.8% is small machines shops and other which is mostly all aviation and Koch the second largest manufacturing employer in Wichita along with other non-aviation manufacturing represent 37.2% of the manufacturing jobs. Having toured Kansas Aviation Museum and discussing with the Aviation Historian the significance of this he enlightened me to the fact that 700,000 aircraft were built between 1919 to 1993 in Kansas and that represented an unprecedented 68% of all aircraft built anywhere in the world during that period. Today the European Markets and other countries are in on the action, Kansas has been giving up it’s market share even though the pie has expanded, now it is contracting and of course Kansas and specifically Wichita is taking the biggest hit. September 18-21 is the big aviation festival and it will be attended by our team. Recently we visited Dayton for their big event Inventing Flight. The unfortunate issues about this downturn in the boom or bust aviation manufacturing city of the world is that people lose jobs. We talked to one man who was laid off at Raytheon who had less than two hours to pick up his belongings put them in a box and was escorted out after faithfully serving for years, very disgruntled. He said there will be shootings if that type of disrespect continues although he was relatively okay now, was quite miffed at such a situation. Remember the eight recent shooting victims in Mississippi Boeing plant. We also have a bit of history to share after having lived in CA where the sector rotation of Aerospace workers saw about 88,000 high paying jobs leave in about a two year period. In Wichita we are taking 45,000 jobs all in one city. And that would literally kill the town, today they are being cautious and careful and trying to cope. A couple of interesting aviation museums are there in the city thought of and can undisputedly claim to be the birthplace of commercial aviation. Where Mr. Lear founder of Lear Jet once said in a speech; “Nothing is impossible, if you imagine it, in all it’s detail” of course speaking of his designing and building of Lear Jet, he was not even an engineer and he proved everyone wrong. The job market is tight if you are in aviation after all where do you go? You are already in a town that is the largest concentration in the world on aircraft building and aviation sector. Maybe you can move to Dallas and work for Lockheed, but chances are you are better to stay put and wait it out. The individual we previously mentioned decided to do that, he is getting into real estate income property and the houses are about $98,000 average and he claims unfortunately are 14% vacant, the economic numbers we saw for June 2003 show 9.1% but he said that does not take into consideration the amount of retrofits and upgrading, renovations that the low market is taking advantage of now. Apartments even with the many colleges are vacant at least 9.3% now. So he knows it will be rough, but what can he do. Arguing the points of socialism and respect for the worker were discussed and the reality of the issues looked at it is apparent that America has a difference of opinion on what corporations are suppose to do within a free market system and how workers are to be treated and paid and why trade restrictions may be needed. This is an example of high paying salaries for manufacturing and job losses effect real people. Another man we talked to also laid off from Raytheon his was a job known to be deleted and he had 6 months to prepare and he works at Home Depot sometimes until ten PM even though he was use to working at 7 Am to 3 PM at Raytheon. He said in Retail the hours can be very unpredictable and scheduled without consideration of his Montana Farm humble upbringings in the North East corner of the state. He got his degree moved to Wichita, now he is there and cannot really move back. Bummer, we are talking with moving companies and U-haul and Ryder, definite growth industry as lay offs mean people moving back home, some to a retail ghost town if it is a small rural area, others to no-job but family to move in with. Lots of colleges in Wichita for us to secure labor, we practically signed up a whole Blitz Team in one hour the other night. They go to many schools, one boy’s dad worked for Boeing which works with the Air Force, CIA, etc. contracts for things such as net-centric warfare, specialty listening devices etc and upgrades to aircraft and his mom who is a Nurse those jobs plentiful. He told his son to get an IT type degree and he is going to WSU-Wichita State University. Many students we talked to are studying at the local tech universities to go into employment places like; WTI-Wichita Technical Institute and WATC-Wichita Area Technical College. 13,000 students go to WATC and study Diesel Mechanics, Environmental, Culinary Arts, Computer Manufacturing, Aviation, Auto Body, and Legal Sec. And to become an Airframe and Power plant Mechanic A & P. But the FAA has not got off their ass to certify the school, probably due to bureaucracy and competitive intervention with government, same story in every industry. So much for free markets and competition? Wichita is in a little situation and they actually expect it to get worse after all Travel, Airlines are down, contracts for government aircraft have already been awarded and it will be a few years for the commercial aviation airline industry to return and the global competition for private jets is getting some start-up competition, from Centennial Park in Denver, Albuquerque and even Honda in Tokoyo now building private jets. We have sen lay offs also in Savannah with Gulfstream. Aviation sector is hurting and Wichita is seeing the largest part of it. When thins return and they should it will be great, but now real people are getting laid off and wondering what the hell they are going to do. Those working on government contracts will not see a slow down due to the money flow efforts of Homeland Security and Military to protect our people, but there are only so many jobs available right now. Good aviation museums there include. http://www.KansasAviationMuseum.org and http://www.wingsoverwichita.com and one other interesting must see; http://members.cox.net/ksfm fire fighters museum. But if you just want an aircraft washed go to; http://www.jetwashguys.com .
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