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Lockheed prepares to add 8 aircraft to backorder

By Molly Hulsey

mhulsey@scbiznews.com

Lockheed Martin has not been hampered by the stalled orders affecting civilian aerospace markets if its Greenville F-16 production is any indicator.

Sustainment work aside, the company’s Upstate facility will remain busy for a while.

On June 17, the company announced an order of eight F-16 Fighting Falcon aircraft bound for Jordan, bringing Lockheed Martin’s backorder of the jet to 136.

The order isn’t Jordan’s first stock of F-16 jets. Lockheed Martin also doesn’t expect it to be the country’s last.

The nation has been using the F-16 since the late 90s, but, according to Jennifer Edwards, Lockheed’s senior manager of communications, the current fleet of early model F-16 jets was procured through third-party transfers, not purchased directly from Lockheed Martin.

The order of F-16 Block 70 aircraft will be the country’s first order of new F-16 jets.

“This F-16 acquisition reflects over 70 years of U.S. cooperation and decades of partnership with Lockheed Martin,” Aimee Burnett, vice president of Lockheed’s integrated fighter group business development department, said in a news release. “Our history partnering with Jordan strengthens regional security and helps protect citizens through 21st century security technologies that support critical missions today and into the future.”

Burnett met with Brigadier Gen. Mohammad Hiyasat of the Royal Jordanian Air Force, Major Gen. Yousef Al-Hnaity, chairman of Jordan’s Joint Chiefs of Staff and Jordan Armed Forces, and other Jordanian officials to sign a letter of offer and acceptance for the eight jets after the U.S. State Department approved up to 16 F-16 Block 70 aircraft for purchase by Jordanian allies in February.

According to Edwards, the company is working with the U.S. and Jordanian governments to finalize a letter of offer and acceptance for a second order of eight jets. According to the U.S. State Department, the order will cost an expected $4.21 billion.

“This proposed sale will support the foreign policy and national security objectives of the United States by helping to improve the security of a Major Non-NATO Ally that is an important force for political stability and economic progress in the Middle East,” the State Department said in the February announcement. “The proposed sale will improve Jordan’s capability to meet current and future threats by ensuring continued interoperability with U.S. and coalition forces. These aircraft will modernize the Jordanian fighter aircraft fleet and support operational requirements associated with regional U.S.-coalition goals, such as countering violent extremist organizations, countering malign state and non-state actors, and border defense. Jordan will have no difficulty absorbing this equipment into its armed forces.”

The total order consists of 12 oneseat “C” model and four two-seat “D” model aircraft, according to Edwards. In February, the U.S. State Department expected the sale would require around 20 U.S. contractor representatives to visit Jordan for 36 months to “support secure storage requirements of critically controlled assets and provide on-site contractor logistics support.”

The company expects to fulfill the first order to Jordan in the mid- to late 2020s, as it plans to launch flight tests for the first F-16 Block 70 jet earmarked for Bahrain in early 2023.

In past interviews, Lockheed Martin said it would be able to produce three aircraft a month after the two-year long process of blueprinting and carrying the production of the first F-16 made in Greenville. The facility’s manufacturing rate is expected to increase sharply in the next year, according to Edwards.

The government contractor expects

Jordanian officials and Lockheed’s Aimee Burnett met to sign a letter of offer and acceptance. (Photo/Provided)

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YOUR HOME IS WORTH MORE THAN YOU THINK. A LOT MORE.

TAKING OFF Demand, prices, delays escalate for SC air travel

By Molly Hulsey

mhulsey@scbiznews.com

Travelers disappeared from airports in 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic changed the world. Leisure travelers began a steady return in 2021 but business travelers remained grounded.

Now travel is back at levels sufficient to drive up ticket prices and create long lines while airlines add new routes to more places. Even business travelers are showing signs of getting out there again.

As far as all traffic goes at the Charleston International Airport, recovery in a city synonymous with Southeastern tourism had 706,349 more enplanements and deplanements between January and April than the year before.

That’s 66,116 more passengers than during the same period in 2019 and a recovery reflected throughout the state.

Starting on June 23, Breeze Airways will operate daily nonstop flights from Charleston to Orlando and back. On June 28, the airline will launch a daily direct flight from New York City’s Westchester County airport, while Sun Country Airlines introduced a nonstop flight to Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport on Thursdays and Sundays in April.

“We are pleased to add Breeze Airways new daily nonstop service to Westchester Airport to our roster of direct flights,” Elliott Summey, Charleston International Airport executive director and CEO, said in a news release. “With tremendous demand to get to the New York area and Connecticut, we believe daily nonstop to White Plains will be a home run for the Charleston region.”

Direct Breeze Airways flights to San Francisco and Las Vegas, as well as flights to Syracuse, N.Y., and Fort Myers, Fla., were also added to Charleston’s lineup of at least 13 additional routes added since the beginning of 2020.

On the Up and Up

Columbia Metropolitan Airport witnessed an 85.9% year-over-year increase in passenger traffic in February, with close to 90,000 more passengers throughout January to March 2022 than during the same period in 2021, according to the airport.

“We are seeing both personal and the long-awaited business travel return in great volumes — which is welcomed,” Mike Gula, executive director of the airport, said in a statement. “We are not back to pre-pandemic numbers due to the air travel halt COVID-19 brought to airports around the world, but we have far surpassed early projections.”

At the Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport, a location whose mainstay may be more of the business traveler than other state destinations, total traffic has recovered by close to 90% compared to 2019 numbers.

Like CHS, GSP also inaugurated new direct routes and locations throughout the pandemic, including a five-day Contour Airlines flight to Nashville and nonstop service to Orlando, Tampa and Jacksonville, Fla., from Silver Airways.

“Business traffic is coming back and we’re starting to see more throughout the summer,” said Tom Tyra, director of air service development and communications at GSP. “Now we have a lot of summer vacation travelers now that school is out, but we expect in the fall that we’ll see more business travel come back to GSP.”

While the removal of in-air mask mandates made air travel more appealing to some, Tyra thinks that the lack of travel and other restrictions at popular GSP destinations plays more of a role in boosting professional passengers.

“As companies brought people back to the office, then they were ready to go back and talk to customers,” he told SC Biz News.

Skyrocketing gas and corresponding ticket prices won’t keep the summer traveler away, he predicted. The impact of both factors on autumn numbers — again, more reflective of professional traffic — has yet to be seen.

“But we would expect to see a little higher ticket prices than we had,” Tyra said. “Of course, during the pandemic, they were really low because airlines were just hoping to get customers back in the airplane. And now that they’re ready to go, all the airplanes are going to be very full.”

Passenger routes to Europe, many which were constricted during the previous two years, prompting the transformation of Aer Lingus and British Airway jets into cargo planes at GSP, have now returned en force.

But along with escalating prices, airlines and airports have another snag in the system: a shortage of pilots and general staff.

“Many of the airlines saw some of their pilots retire early or move on to other jobs, and so they’re just now coming back and training some of the pilots,” Tyra said. “They may not be flying as many airplanes as they would hope, so that only makes the seats that are out there more scarce. And so when you have high demand, and not much supply, then the price will go up, and people are buying it as quickly as they can.”

It’s a bird. It’s a plane. It’s a thundercloud …

On June 17, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg met with airline executives to get an answer for the slew of delays that have mounted during the beginning of peak travel season.

“Air travelers should be able to expect reliable service as demand returns to levels not seen since before the pandemic,” Buttigieg said in a statement.

There may not be an easy answer.

In what pundits have called “Travel Armageddon,” delays mounted in midJune. U.S. cancellations topped 10,000 for the weekend of June 18-19, with more than 4,200 flights delayed and nearly 900 canceled on Sunday alone, according to FlightAware, which tracks flights in real time.

During the peak of delays and cancellations over the weekend, Denver, Dallas and Atlanta were the epicenter for stalled flights. On June 19, the three airports reported a total of 92 delays and 28 cancellations, according to the site’s “Misery Map.”

On June 17, Tyra said he thought that thunderstorms and air traffic control delays at major cities — common banes for the summer flight — have been creating the largest stir.

“You can have a thunderstorm, let’s say in New York, and it goes right across Philadelphia, Washington, D.C.,” he told SC Biz News. “And then, all of a sudden, all the flights that aren’t even going there but passing by there are impacted. We’re seeing a lot of that.”

Pop-up storms throughout June have only exacerbated the concerns of many travelers who haven’t boarded since 2019, as have strikes among a growing string of airlines in Europe: EasyJet, Ryanair, Brussels Airlines and at the Charles De Gaulle Airport.

And for the business traveler, time is even more of the essence.

On Monday, June 20, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport reported “significant” delays, according to FlightStats by Cirium.

Delays at GSP were “low but increasing” and “low but decreasing” at CHS. Like most of the regional airports across the state, CAE was noted as having a “very low” number of delays.

Travelers arrive at Charleston International Airport. Charleston Aviation Authority expects the 2022 fiscal year to be the airport’s best. (Photo/Teri Errico Griffis)

Programs work to promote aviation careers

By Christina Lee Knauss

cknauss@scbiznews.com

Lori Wicker is likely one of the only people you will ever meet who regularly shows up at public schools with a helicopter or an airplane in tow.

As executive vice president and director of science, technology, engineering and math education outreach with Columbia-based nonprofit Celebrate Freedom Foundation, she and others with the organization regularly travel the state, teaching students from elementary through high school about STEM skills such as science and math using aviation as a tool. When they visit a school, Wicker and the other CFF members also bring with them one of the aircraft the organization owns. These include a T34-B navy flight trainer as well as retired Huey and Cobra helicopters.

The goal, Wicker says, is not only to develop STEM skills but to inspire the next generation of young people to get interested in careers related to aviation and aeronautics.

It’s an important goal in a state where the aerospace industry is growing by leaps and bounds, with no end in sight.

South Carolina is currently home to two important aircraft production facilities, with Boeing building its 787 Dreamliner line in Charleston and Lockheed Martin producing F-16s on its new assembly line in Greenville. Dozens of other companies around the state produce everything from aircraft parts to composite materials used to build aircraft.

Aerospace both directly and indirectly has an impact of $28.8 billion annually on the state’s economy, according to a 2020 study by SC Aerospace, an initiative of the South Carolina Council on Competitiveness. There were 136,244 aerospace employees statewide in 2019, according to the study, a number that has likely grown since then because the aerospace sector is also adding employees at a faster rate than other industries.

The study showed that aerospace employment grew by 10.7% from 200919, compared to a 2.2% increase in state employment as a whole.

“We’re doing whatever we can to connect, support and grow the aerospace industry in South Carolina,” said Stephen Astemborski, director of SC Aerospace. “Aerospace has such a huge impact on our economy not only because of the aerospace jobs themselves, but because with every new aerospace job 1.7 additional jobs are created in other sectors. We also want people to know that the industry’s jobs as a whole are very well paid.”

According to the SC Aerospace study, average employee compensation in the aerospace industry in South Carolina is $81,114, compared to an average $59,609 in manufacturing and the state’s overall average salary of $44,986.

With the industry’s huge rate of growth, SC Aerospace is pulling out all the stops to promote aviation careers to everyone from youth to adults looking to change careers. Astemborski said the effort extends from promoting aviation-based curriculum in high school classrooms and at technical colleges to spreading the aviation message at baseball games.

On June 22, SC Aerospace hosted its second annual SC Aerospace Night at a Greenville Drive minor league game. The event included interactive displays set up in the stadium’s concourse by aerospace companies from around the state and focused on every aspect of the industry, from piloting to maintenance and manufacturing. Outreach to area students was fueled by distributing 695 free tickets to the game.

Wicker said CFF’s programs also stress the wide range of jobs available in aerospace. In the past, the organization has hosted summer camps that help teens get their pilot licenses, while its workforce development program in 2019 enabled 12 students to learn how to restore an aircraft which is now on display at Patriots Point in Charleston.

The STEM school program also stresses the full spectrum of aviation careers at the 50 schools it visits on average each year.

“We even focus on the unusual jobs,” Wicker said. “At one school I had a student tell me he wanted to pump gas when he grew up. We were able to do research and learn that an aircraft refueling specialist can earn on average $44,000 a year. The focus is on opening their eyes to the difference between just a job and a career, which means doing something you love.

“There’s a world of careers available in aviation. We’ve had students who go through our programs go into aviation in the military, while others are now working for Boeing and Lockheed Martin.”

Statewide, other volunteer programs are working to get youth of all ages interested in aviation.

Through the Young Eagles program, kids ages 8 through 17 can take airplane rides with experienced pilots on the second Saturday of each month thanks to volunteers at chapters in Columbia, Conway, Greenville, Walterboro, Rock Hill and other locations.

The South Carolina Historic Aviation Foundation, also based in Columbia, works with some youth from Young Eagles and other programs on the ongoing restoration of a World War II-era B-25C Mitchell Medium Bomber that the organization owns.

Schools are doing what they can to promote interest in the aerospace field as well. In 2017, SC Aerospace worked with the Southeast Regional Education Board to launch an aerospace engineering curriculum currently in use in 10 schools around the state, including R.B. Stall High School in North Charleston. Other schools including Greenville Tech Charter High School in Greenville offer curriculum that is more geared toward the piloting side of the aviation industry, but still provides coursework that could be useful in other aerospace sectors.

Boeing South Carolina, meanwhile, is promoting STEM education and interest in aerospace statewide through its DreamLearners program, which targets fifth graders and older students enrolled in STEM programs statewide. Participants not only learn about aerospace topics in the classroom, but also have the opportunity to visit Boeing facilities and meet workers to learn about the industry. DreamLearners is currently virtual because of the pandemic.

The next generations of workers in advanced aeronautics manufacturing, meanwhile, are being trained at the $80 million, 218,000-square foot South Carolina Aeronautical Training Center on the Thornley Campus of Trident Technical College in North Charleston.

Astemborski hopes all of these programs will drive home the message that the aerospace industry offers a future worth exploring.

“Aside from the fact that aeronautics is a lucrative industry and also very exciting and challenging, it’s also a pretty noble profession to go into,” Astemborski said. “Whether you’re flying the aircraft, building it or making the parts that go on it, you’re producing a product that is helping people by getting them where they need to go or delivering goods and services that they might need. You’re working on a world-class, safe product that people can use to see who they love and do what they love.”

The Celebrate Freedom Foundation works to promote aviation careers, such as those like the aircraft refueling specialists pictured, in schools throughout South Carolina. (Photo/File)

orders of an additional 300 F-16 Block 70 aircraft in the years ahead.

Lockheed Martin moved F-16 production to Greenville in 2019 with contracts currently underway, according to previous reports, for at least 112 jets for Bulgaria, Slovakia and two other nations expected by international aerospace media to be Taiwan and Morocco.

According to an April 4 announcement, the proposed sale of four F-16 C Block 70 aircraft, four F-16 D Block 70 aircraft, 11 engines, 19 advanced medium range air-to-air missiles, 28 small diameter bombs and various other defense materials valued at $1.7 billion was approved by the U.S. State Department.

The U.S. State Department expects the sale to help the Bulgarian Air Force deploy modern fighter aircraft over the Black Sea Region and bolster the security of a NATO ally — one less than 400 miles from Ukraine’s Odessa region.

The approval follows the original 2020, $5.1 billion contract for the Bulgarian Airforce that was expected to boost Lockheed’s production by 50%.

“The acquisition of the F-16V Block 70 fighter jets is not just a purchase but a long-term partnership that enables the Bulgarian Air Force to successfully meet the new challenges in the sector,” Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov said in a news release after the Bulgarian government agreed to the purchase of the first set of eight Fighting Falcons in July 2019.

The fourth-generation jet will replace Soviet-era Mikoyan MiG-29 fighter jets to become the first Western aircraft to be maintained in Bulgaria. In 2020, the U.S. Department of Defense expected Lockheed to complete the original order of eight aircraft by Jan. 31, 2027. Fueling the pipeline

Lockheed Martin continues to bolster its workforce to meet that demand. Out of the 300 jobs posted by Lockheed Martin last October for both its sustainment and production programs, 150 have been filled, bringing the Greenville facility’s current employment numbers to about 850.

By the end of the year, the company seeks to hire hundreds of new employees, particularly sheet metal mechanics, avionics technicians and airframe and powerplant generalists, according to Edwards. Planners, engineers and talent within the finance and business operations side of production are also in demand.

In December, the facility also became the only corporate F-16 sustainment and support depot in the country.

To recruit talent in an ever-competitive labor market, the contractor is offering $20,000 in sign-on bonuses and $5,000 in tax-assisted relocation payments for certain roles. Second shift employees are eligible for a 6% premium, according to the company.

Greenville Technical College remains a hub for training new technicians, while Lockheed Martin has hosted several virtual and local career fairs, including some exclusive to transitioning military members and veterans, according to the company.

“Lockheed Martin continues to be committed to military hiring,” Walt Lindsley, new Greenville site director for the company, said in an October release. “Currently at the site, approximately 35% of our employees are veterans, and we aim to keep growing that number.”

More than 3,000 F-16 jets are in operation across 25 nations, according to the company.

More than 3,000 F-16 are in operation across 25 nations, according to Lockheed. The recent order is not Jordan’s first foray into using the jet, but it is the country’s first purchase of new F-16s. (Photo/Provided)

Boeing relocating global headquarters to Virginia

By Ross Norton

rnorton@scbiznews.com

Boeing announced last month that its Arlington, Va., campus just outside Washington, D.C., will serve as the company’s global headquarters.

The company has been headquartered in Chicago for 21 years.

The aerospace and defense firm’s employees in the Arlington area support various corporate functions and specialize in advanced airplane development and autonomous systems, according to a news release. In addition to designating Northern Virginia as its new headquarters, Boeing plans to develop a research and technology hub in the area to attract engineering and technical capabilities.

The move does not affect the function of the North Charleston facility, which employed more than 5,000, according to a January tally. The North Charleston location delivers all three versions of the 787, though deliveries have been stalled for a year as the company investigates issues regarding tiny gaps found between sections of the fuselage, about the width of a human hair.

“We are excited to build on our foundation here in Northern Virginia,” Boeing President CEO Dave Calhoun said in the news release. “The region makes strategic sense for our global headquarters given its proximity to our customers and stakeholders, and its access to world-class engineering and technical talent.”

Boeing will maintain a “significant” presence at its Chicago location and surrounding region, the news release said, but did not elaborate on what that presence will be. The company website said it had 729 employees in the Illinois and made annual supplier and vendor purchases of $1billion in the state.

Over the past two years, Boeing has implemented flexible and virtual solutions that have reduced its office space needs, the release said.

As part of its effort to tap into engineering and technology talent across the United States and around the world, Boeing plans to establish a research and technology hub in Northern Virginia. The hub will focus on developing innovations in the areas of cyber security, autonomous operations, quantum sciences and software and systems engineering, the release said.

The company’s three business units will continue to be based at their current headquarters, which include Boeing Commercial Airplanes in Seattle, Wash.; Boeing Global Services in Plano, Texas; and Boeing Defense, Space and Security in Arlington, Va.

Boeing is relocating its global headquarters to its Arlington, Va., campus just outside Washington, D.C. The company has been based in Chicago for 21 years. (Photo/File)