FILE PHOTO: Airplane fuselages bound for Boeing’s 737 Max production facility await shipment on rail sidings at their top supplier, Spirit AeroSystems Holdings Inc, in Wichita, Kansas, U.S. December 17, 2019. REUTERS/Nick Oxford
(Reuters) – Spirit AeroSystems (SPR.N) said on Thursday it would gradually restart production of parts for Boeing Co’s (BA.N) 737 MAX jets and deliver 216 shipsets in 2020.
Spirit, which had halted production of the MAX parts on Jan. 1, did not specify a date for restarting production.
The company’s biggest customer, Boeing, said on Wednesday it was expecting to resume MAX production ahead of a regulatory approval for the jet’s return to service by mid-2020.
Spirit will produce an average 18 shipsets — complete set of parts for each aircraft — per month for the full-year, down from 52 in 2019.
“Spirit does not expect to achieve a production rate of 52 shipsets per month until late 2022,” the company said in statement.
Spirit also replaced its Chief Financial Officer Jose Garcia with Mark Suchinski, who was vice president of quality at the company, after identifying non-compliance in certain accounting processes.
The company said the matter will not materially affect its financial statements for the year ended Dec. 31, 2019.
Spirit’s stock fell more than 7% in premarket trade.
Reporting by Sanjana Shivdas in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D’Silva and Vinay Dwivedi