Boeing strike in Seattle now affecting Southern California travelers and businesses
New airline V Australia cancels some flights because it doesn't expect to get the jets it had ordered any time soon, and layoffs loom at local suppliers who aren't receiving new orders for aircraft parts.
A strike by Boeing Co. factory workers in the Seattle area has begun to hit Southern California travelers and local aerospace companies as the walkout has left at least one airline without the new planes it needs and aircraft part makers facing layoffs.
V Australia, a new airline started by British billionaire Richard Branson, said on Thursday that it was postponing by more than two months the launch of its first flights between Los Angeles and Sydney, Australia.
The service was scheduled to start Dec. 15 but has been pushed back to Feb. 28, leaving thousands of passengers who had already purchased tickets in a lurch.
In an e-mail to passengers, the airline's top executive said V Australia was "very sorry to have to tell you" but that it didn't expect to get the first three new jets it ordered from Boeing in time to launch the service. The first plane, a 365-passenger 777-300ER, was nearly complete when the strike began Sept. 6.
"Boeing has advised us that it cannot predict the duration of the strike," the airline's general manager, Scott Swift, said in the e-mail. "It is in these circumstances that we feel we have no choice but to delay our V Australia launch."
As airline passengers were left scrambling to make alternative plans, hundreds of Boeing suppliers in the region were facing prospects of laying of workers as the strike neared its one-month anniversary and doesn't appear to be anywhere near its end.
More than 27,000 members of the International Assn. of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, most of whom work in factories in the Seattle area, walked off their jobs after the union and Boeing could not come to terms for a new labor contract. The strike does not involve Boeing workers or operations in Southern California, most of which are defense-related.
"It is at an impasse," said Scott Hamilton, an aviation consultant who has been closely following the labor dispute. "They are still very far apart on the core issues," which include how much work could be outsourced to foreign companies.
The strike has stopped final assembly of all Boeing commercial jets including the company's most popular 737 single-aisle jet and the new fuel-efficient 787 Dreamliner, leaving suppliers with no new orders for aircraft parts.
