Boeing Moving Headquarters From Chicago To Arlington, VA: Report

SEATTLE, WA —Boeing is moving its corporate headquarters to Arlington, Virginia from Chicago, according to a Thursday report in the Wall Street Journal. The story has been confirmed The Air Current and the Seattle Times.

While some sources reported that the company would announce the move next week, the Seattle Times reported that an announcement could come as early as Thursday.

Boeing, the world's largest aerospace company and leading manufacturer of commercial jetliners and defense, space and security systems, was founded in the state of Washington and was headquartered in Seattle until the move to Chicago in 2001. Chicago reportedly offered the company as much as $20 million in tax incentives to relocate.

But plenty of Boeing workers remain in Washington, even if those numbers have decreased in recent years. The company's commercial airplane division is headquartered in Renton and Boeing continues to make planes in Renton and Everett.

According to the Seattle Times, Boeing currently employs less than 56,000 people in the state of Washington — down from nearly 72,000 two years ago. However, the state of Washington's workforce remains the company's largest workforce anywhere in the world.

The move to Arlington, in the Washington D.C. area, will put the company's top leadership close to key government officials and lawmakers in the nation's capital, according to reports. The Pentagon remains Boeing's major customer on the defense side, the Seattle Times reported.

Meanwhile, the government has been tightening safety oversight over Boeing since two of the company's 737 MAX planes crashed, one in 2018 and the other in 2019. This move will allow the commercial airplanes division to work closely with the Federal Aviation Administration and lawmakers from the U.S. House and Senate, the Seattle Times reported.

The Seattle Times said some in the industry had called for Boeing to move its headquarters back to Seattle.

However, James Field, writing Thursday for Aviation Source News, explained why he felt the move to the D.C. area made sense.

"Why not a return to Seattle? It's most definitely a question to pose," Field wrote. "The political move to an area closer to D.C. makes sense, and offices are probably far cheaper in Arlington than they are in Chicago or Seattle alike."

Field also pointed out that Boeing has a large manufacturing facility in South Carolina, where the company assembles parts of its 787 Dreamliner, and he wondered if Boeing might be looking to bring other manufacturing facilities eastward.

However, the company has not indicated that is part of its strategy.