Boeing supplier Spirit to reduce production

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Spirit AeroSystems Holdings Inc, a key supplier to Boeing Co, said on Monday it will reduce production on certain Boeing products due to the machinists' strike.

The fourth strike in 20 years by Boeing's biggest union threatens to cost the planemaker $100 million a day in revenue and is likely to cause problems for a long list of suppliers across the world in an increasingly global aerospace business.

Spirit said its previous 2008 financial guidance, provided on July 31, is being withdrawn. Spirit shares were trading down 2 percent at $21.13.

The Boeing supplier said it will implement a revised production and delivery schedule with a reduced work week for employees involved in the affected products.

Spirit, based in Wichita, Kansas, makes fuselages for the Boeing 737 and 777 and is also a key supplier for Boeing's new 787 Dreamliner, producing part of the forward fuselage, the wing edge and flight deck.

Spirit made 87 percent of its revenues from Boeing in 2007, according to a regulatory filing in which the supplier also acknowledged its business would be materially adversely affected by any strike at Boeing.

Spirit said on Monday that it managed its way through a previous machinists' strike at Boeing in September 2005 using a shorter work week instead of stopping production.

Spirit is a former Boeing unit which went public in 2006.

Boeing's 27,000 machinists were preparing for a third day of strike action on Monday, halting production at the plane maker's Seattle-area plants, in protest at Boeing's contract offer and what they see as plans to shift more jobs to non-union and foreign companies.

(Editing by Dave Zimmerman)