Boeing’s Presence in South Carolina

S.C. – Boeing’s impact on South Carolina is best summarized with an analogy: the manufacturing giant is to S.C. aerospace what BMW is to the state’s auto industry.

Both are linchpins in the state’s industrial sector, with each employing thousands of workers and relying on scores of suppliers from around the state. Both have also changed how people inside the state and beyond view South Carolina.

Boeing moved into its 1.2 million-square-foot North Charleston site in 2011 after purchasing the facilities of suppliers Vought and Global Aeronautica. It has continued to grow since then, and today its Lowcountry location is the company’s loan production site for Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner aircraft.

While not the first aerospace company to move into South Carolina, Boeing is the largest, with more than 5,000 employees. In addition to the assembly plant, the company has a research and technology center, an engineering center, and a propulsion site in the Lowcountry. Boeing’s presence has helped South Carolina become a key player in the nation’s aerospace sector.

Today, the state is a significant player in commercial and military aviation industries. It is home to more than 400 aerospace and aviation companies, according to the S.C. Department of Commerce.

“Boeing was absolutely the key to the aerospace industry in South Carolina,” said Hossein Haj-Hariri, dean of the College of Engineering and Computing at the University of South Carolina.

“It was huge of Boeing to pick up from Seattle and come here,” added Haj-Hariri, whose department oversees the McNair Center for Aerospace Innovation and Research. “It was a seismic change because it wasn’t just Boeing, but also all the suppliers that moved here, too.”

South Carolina’s burgeoning role in the sector is coming at the right time, as analysts are bullish on the aerospace and defense industry, with expectations that it will grow at a 12 percent clip annually over the next five years, from $700 billion last year to more than $1 trillion by 2026, according to the Aerospace & Defense Global Market Report 2022.

While the sector has provided tens of thousands of high-quality jobs in the state, it’s also raised questions about state-funded economic incentives, which some complain are nothing more than corporate welfare. This includes nearly $60 million the state has spent to help train workers for Boeing and additional tens of millions of dollars being set aside for the manufacturing giant to expand in the state.