Boeing To Relocate All 787 Assembly to South Carolina-Huge Economic Blow

It was first reported late Tuesday night by Dori Monson, talk show host for KIRO in Seattle on Twitter.

By morning, the whole nation knew about the Wall Street Journal report that Boeing plans to relocate all assembly of it's 787 Dreamliner planes to it's newer plant in South Carolina. Sources tell the WSJ the move is all but finalized, it will just remain to see how long it takes them to do it, and what the final job losses will be.

Reports from MyNorthest.com indicate some body issues to some of the planes are the reason for the consolidation. Boeing asked airlines to pull  8 of it's 787's from service due to fuselage (body) defects that were detected, could have potentially cased them to fail in flight. Apparently they were made in South Carolina and flown to Everett for final assembly.

Boeing officials said over the summer they were looking at ways to consolidate the two 787 lines into one, and this move could potentially take another 1,000 jobs out of Snohomish County and Everett. That coming on top of a 10 percent workforce reduction announced by the company, many of them in the Seattle-Everett area. Boeing is also shifting a lot of 767 and new 777X development to South Carolina as well.

It's estimated if the full 787 move takes place along with the other cuts, as many as 30,000 aerospace and related jobs would eventually be lost in WA.

While COVID has been blamed for hurting the aerospace industry, others point to Washington state's long battle with Boeing, as well as other major corporations. It's no secret Amazon is moving out of Seattle to Bellevue. From unrest and rioting, to taxes, unfriendly business climates and other issues have steadily driven a lot of business out of the state, especially the west side.

Gov. Inslee issued a statement that began with a harsh statement about the company:

“If the Wall Street Journal report is accurate, Boeing would be turning its back on the finest workers and the best place in the world to build airplanes."

He went on to say he and officials stood ready to work with Boeing to keep a strong aerospace presence here.

Fox Business reports Boeing isn't the first such company to move to southern or southeastern states from the West Coast. Thousands of aerospace jobs have relocated from California.

This shouldn't come as a surprise, however, as reports indicate Boeing had been considering such a move for over two months, much of it related to COVID ravaging the economy.