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The massive port strike on the East and Gulf Coasts isn’t just affecting food and furniture shipments. The aviation news site Leeham News and Analysis noted that key U.S. facilities for Boeing (BA) and Airbus (AIR) get their parts from ports that are currently shut down.
Boeing produces its 787 Dreamliner planes in South Carolina, and Airbus builds A320s, A321s, and A220s in Alabama. Respectively, they’re supplied by ports in Charleston and Mobile. A work stoppage by the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) means many of those parts won’t be getting through.
The situation complicates operations for both companies in different ways. For Airbus, the supply chain crunch that led it to cut its annual guidance for plane production just got a little crunchier. Boeing, which is dealing with its own strike by International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers–represented (IAM) workers in Washington state, was relying on its South Carolina facility to keep a trickle of cash coming in.
Because Boeing’s 787 factory is in a so-called right-to-work state where union organizing is more difficult, many of its employees there are not unionized and can keep making planes during the IAM strike. But not if they don’t have the supplies they need to do so.
Neither Boeing nor Airbus immediately responded to a request for comment.