Flight Structures to make installation kits for
737 Internet service.
A Marysville aerospace company will produce
installation kits for the Boeing Co.’s new in-flight Internet
service on 737 jets.
The announcement that Flight Structures Inc. had
been picked for the work came April 21, the same day that its
parent company, B/E Aerospace, announced it had increased its
sales and narrowed its losses in the first quarter.
Flight Structures will design, certify and
manufacture the kits for 737s being retrofitted with Connexion
by Boeing Internet service. Boeing will install the new service
on Lufthansa planes soon.
All Nippon Airways, Japan Airlines and
Scandinavian Airlines System have definitive agreements to add
the service to their long-range jets. British Airways, China
Airlines and Singapore Airlines have announced they intend to
add them to their long-range fleets. But so far, Boeing has not
found customers who want the service on smaller, shorter-range,
single-aisle jets like the 737.
Hiring Flight Structures for the Connexion
program will help speed the certification and introduction of
the service on 737s, said Beverly Wyse, Connexion’s director of
deployment and installation. Flight Structures has “a
particularly strong record of performance and experience in the
integration and certification arena,” she said.
