NEW YORK, April 9 (UPI) -- Boeing, the world's largest aerospace company, may sell some of its most important U.S. manufacturing facilities in a major cost-cutting move.
Boeing is considering selling its 1,100-acre, 12 million-square-foot fuselage assembly plant in Wichita, Kan., as well as smaller facilities in Tulsa and McAlester, Okla., the Wall Street Journal said Friday.
A spokesman confirmed that Boeing was soliciting buyers, but said that "no decision to sell has been made" but rather, the company was "just surveying the market."
If the sale goes through, it would, for the first time, hand control of a major portion of Boeing's bread-and-butter business to an outside company.
The Wichita division produces the fuselages of the company's best-selling, single-aisle 737, as well as cockpit sections and engine cowlings of most of the company's other jetliners.
Boeing employs 12,400 people in the region and has a total world-wide force of almost 157,000.
