Spirit CEO says ‘probably going to be at low end’ of Boeing guidance this year

Spirit AeroSystems CEO Thomas Gentile said while presenting at the Jefferies Industrials Conference, according to a transcript: “Well, we right now are starting to cycle at 42 aircraft per month. We’ve got 2 production lines in our plant. We can go up to 3, but we have 2 right now. Each produces 21 per month, so 1 a day. So we call it 2 1-day lines. So we load 2 each day, and we try to deliver to each day… In addition, on the 42 aircraft per month, we are now about aligned with Boeing in terms of production rate. And as we go into next year, we’re going to finish this year at 42, we’re going to go into next year at 42. So this year, our guidance was 370 to 390 aircraft on the max. We’re probably going to be at the low end of that range given all the pressures and there’s some pressure to that. But we’re going to end this year at 42 aircraft per month. And we’re going to be at 42 aircraft per month all of next year as will Boeing. And that’s about 500 aircraft next year. And then in ’25 and ’26, Boeing has said they want to get up to 50 aircraft per month. And they’ve added a fourth line in Everett. So they’re very serious about it, and they certainly have the backlog to support it. That would get us back up to 600 aircraft per month. So that’s how we will align with them. We typically are about 6 months in advance of them. Because we’re earlier in the production process. And so we start hiring even 10 to 12 weeks before that. So we have enough time to train our employees and also to get them on the job experience.”