OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- A Boeing Co. spokeswoman said Thursday that it is too early to know if the U.S. Air Force's planned postponement of a program to upgrade the cockpits of its C-130 aircraft will reduce the number of jobs the company plans to move from California to Oklahoma City.
The Boeing Co. announced plans in 2010 to move about 550 employees from Long Beach to Oklahoma City, with about 230 of those to work on the C-130 Avionics Modernization Program as part of a contract with the Air Force. The rest were to work on similar upgrades to the Air Force's B-1 aircraft.
About 110 of the jobs associated with the C-130 upgrades have been filled, Boeing spokeswoman Jennifer Hogan said.
The "Air Force Priorities for a New Strategy with Constrained Budgets" report released Wednesday said it has "eliminated expensive programs with more affordable alternatives," including the C-130 program.
"We still have not been told that's going to happen. We still have our contract" with the Air Force, Hogan said.
Hogan said Boeing was told that the Air Force's testing of the cockpit upgrades will be placed on hold later this month and that the company expects to have more information after the president's 2013 budget is published.
Hogan said the jobs in Oklahoma City include engineers who design the upgrades while the actual work on the cockpits is done elsewhere. She declined to say that the jobs are in jeopardy.
"It's too premature," she said. "We can't make a decision on what to do based on that (Air Force) strategy document."
The move of the jobs from Long Beach to Oklahoma City was expected to be completed by the end of the year.
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