Collins Aerospace, the largest employer in Cedar Rapids, is reporting a significant decline in profits during the pandemic.
Adjusted operating profit is down 64 percent in the first nine months of the year. Collins Aerospace is owned by Raytheon Technologies. Raytheon CEO Greg Hayes says the military-defense side of the business is growing, but the commercial side has taken a hit from the pandemic.
“We don’t expect commercial air traffic to return to 2019 levels until at least 2023,” Hayes says, “and that’s, of course, depending upon the timing of a widely distributed vaccine.”
Raytheon is shifting some production from the east coast to Iowa.
“We’re shifting some of the production of our circuit cards from our Andover, Massachusetts facility to Collins Aerospace’s Circuit Card Center of Excellence in Coralville, Iowa,” Hayes says. “This allows us to better meet our customer commitments at a lower cost and balances demand between our facilities.”
Hayes did not say whether this means more jobs at the Coralville plant. Raytheon’s CEO says 19,000 jobs across the entire company have been cut since the beginning of the year, but Raytheon is still hiring in “targeted areas,” primarily engineers.
“Decisive actions that will allow us to emerge from the pandemic in a position of strength,” Hayes says.
Hayes made his comments during a conference call with investors.
