By Chang-Ran Kim and Tim Hepher
TOKYO/PARIS (Reuters) - Aerospace groups prepared forglobal disruption from a potentially lengthy strike at BOEING (BA.NY)as one of the planemaker's biggest outside suppliers lost notime in cutting production and working hours.
Three days after 27,000 Boeing machinists walked off thejob bringing assembly of the world's top-selling airliners to ahalt, Spirit AeroSystems Holdings on Monday suspended its 2008financial guidance and said it was cutting volumes on certainBoeing products.
The former Boeing unit, based in Wichita, Kansas and one ofthe world's largest suppliers of airframe structures, said ithad managed its way through a similar strike in 2005 by using ashorter working week instead of stopping production.
It said it would implement a revised production anddelivery schedule with a reduced working week for employees.
Economists have warned the strike which began on Saturdaycould hit businesses around the Seattle area, where Boeing'scommercial assembly plants are located, and dent the U.S.economy in particular by expanding its trade deficit.
Early in New York, shares in Boeing rose 0.8 percent at$63.41 but lagged well behind a global stock market rally,driven by a weekend mortgage bailout in the United States.
Shares in EADS, parent of Boeing's European planemakerrival Airbus, rose more than 5 percent in Paris.
The fourth strike in 20 years by Boeing's biggest unionthreatens to cost the company $100 million (57 million pounds)a day in revenue and is likely to cause problems for a longlist of suppliers across the world in an increasingly globalaerospace business.
"My big worry is that historically Boeing strikes tend tobe protracted," said Howard Wheeldon, senior strategist at BGCBrokers LP in London.
"It is serious. This isn't just a dispute between theworkforce and Boeing, but between the workforce and its ownunion. I am concerned it will get worse before it gets better."
Any prolonged strike will have a rapid impact on companieswhich produce parts and engines for existing models such as thepopular single-aisle 737 jet or the 777 mini-jumbo, and couldeventually push back the already delayed 787 Dreamliner.
SOME IMPACT
Japanese supplier Fuji Heavy Industries, whose mainbusiness is making cars under the Subaru brand, said a lengthystrike could have an impact on its aircraft division.
"We do good business, especially for the 777. Right nowwe're waiting for information from Boeing, but if this lastsone, two weeks, it would have some impact," a spokesman said.
Shares in France's Latecoere, which makes aircraft doorsand other structural components for both Boeing and Airbus,fell around 2 percent, while Italy's Finmeccanica, whose Aleniaunit is a major partner on the 787, rose but failed to keep upwith the rise in the rest of the market.
"For the time being there is no impact on production ...but we'll need to see what happens with Boeing's programmes," asource close to the company said.
Boeing itself is cushioned for the time being by a $4.1billion profit last year and a record $275 billion worth ofcommercial plane orders, but analysts say each day of thestrike will shave a cent per share off its annual profits.
The walkout by the International Association of Machinistsand Aerospace Workers (IAM), Boeing's largest union, echoes atrio of previous disputes. The union struck for 48 days in1989, 69 days in 1995 and 28 days in 2005.
The machinists are protesting not only about its contractoffer but what they see as plans to shift more jobs tonon-union and foreign companies. Some were angered by a uniondecision to allow two days of extra talks after an overwhelmingstrike vote.
"It's not about the money, it's all about thesubcontracting wordage," said picketer Butch Blount, a53-year-old motor equipment operator, handing out cookies tofellow strikers outside Boeing's massive Everett, Washington,plant on Sunday.
Boeing has significantly widened its base of suppliers forits newest plane, the 787 Dreamliner, which is being made bycompanies around the world and only assembled in Everett.
Meanwhile the new freighter version of Boeing's popularlong-range 777, which has 75 orders and is set for firstdelivery in the fourth quarter, faces delays, along with earlyproduction work on Boeing's new jumbo, the 747-8.
Airlines have been quiet so far on the effects of thestrike. Singapore Airlines, which has 20 of the 787s on orderfor delivery starting in 2011, said it was in talks with Boeingover how the walkout might affect deliveries.
(Additional reporting by John Bowker, Paolo Biondi, MarkMcSherry, Bill Rigby and Laura Myers; Editing by David Holmes)
