The Boeing Corporation has opened a Kiev representative office that is independent of its Moscow representative office, RBK reports, citing an official representative of the aircraft manufacturer.
Boeing Ukraine and the Boeing Design Center (which is subordinate to the representative office) began operation in Kiev in November 2013 as part of the corporation’s global strategy for raising its competitiveness and ensuring future growth.
The representative office formally began operation in spring this year. It currently employs about 150 people, but it plans to increase the number of its employees to 400 by the end of the year.
According to unofficial information, the number of engineers currently working at the Boeing Design Center in Russia should be reduced simultaneously from 1,200 to 1,000 by the end of the year.
"The Ukrainian design center is actively recruiting employees now, and many are being asked to move from Moscow to work in Kiev," said an employee of the Boeing Design Center in Russia. According to him, the management of Boeing Russia & CIS attributes this to the fact that labor costs in Ukraine are much lower, compared with the contract for an engineer in Moscow. The American newspaper Seattle Times estimated in 2012 that the average salary of a Russian engineer did not exceed one-third of the salary of a specialist with a similar skill level in the United States.
Gradually, some orders will be transferred from the Boeing Design Center in Moscow to Kiev. "Orders for design of aircraft structures and aircraft parts, which were previously distributed among engineers in Moscow, are now being partially transferred to Ukraine in order to ensure utilization of the capacity of the new center in Kiev," said an employee close to Boeing Russia & CIS. For now, they are only given parts of work such as drawings, but Russian engineers are already traveling on business trips to Ukraine to train their new colleagues and familiarize them with the standard operating procedures.
The Boeing Design Center in Moscow implements about one-third of the engineering projects on the Boeing 787 aircraft. Its level of participation in the development of other types of Boeing aircraft ranges from 30% to 40%, the corporation estimated in 2012. Orders for design of aircraft structures for Boeing are filled mostly by employees of two Russian companies, namely LLC Scientific Engineering Company and the Progresstekh group of companies (engineers from the Ilyushin design bureau, JSC Sukhoi Civil Aircraft, and Khrunichev GKNPTs are also involved). They are involved in the work of the Boeing 747, 777, 787-8 Dreamliner, and 787-9 projects.
Progresstekh already has a representative office in Ukraine, where its engineers are working on projects involving the aircrafts Sukhoi Superjet 100 (SSJ-100), Gulfstream G 650, Mitsubishi Regional Jet (MRJ), Bombardier C-Series, and Airbus 350. Boeing is not on this list, but it will soon be because Progresstekh Ukraine is currently recruiting workers, according to information on the company's website. An employee of Progresstekh Ukraine confirmed to RBK that the recruitment is precisely for Boeing projects.
As the Interfax Ukraine news agency reported, citing the state-owned Information Resource Center, Boeing Ukraine LLC was registered in Kiev on 2 October 2013, and its authorized capital was set at UAH 11.99 million on 2 October 2014. Its founders are the Boeing Company and Boeing Inc. Russia (United States). According to the IRTs, Mikhail Yanchishin, who was previously Boeing Russia’s director for cooperation with partner organizations, became the head of the representative office on 16 April 2014.
