Timeline of change at Boeing

1966: Construction begins on Boeing's 747 Everett plant, which eventually becomes the company's largest site. The facilities are expanded in 1978 and again in 1992.

September 1991: Boeing Chairman Frank Shrontz tells the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce "the necessity to stay competitive in the world market" makes rising costs in Seattle area an issue. Building new facilities in Wichita, Kan., or in Huntsville, Ala., is 30 percent to 40 percent cheaper, he says.

December 1996: Boeing acquires Rockwell and announces merger with McDonnell Douglas. As of early 1998, only 43 percent of Boeing employees are in Washington state.

March 2001: After 85 years in Seattle, Boeing announces it will move its corporate headquarters. Washington Gov. Gary Locke says Boeing told him "no amount of concessions would lead them to keep their headquarters here." In May, Boeing announces it had picked Chicago.

November 2002: Boeing's Spokane plant, established 12 years earlier to manufacture a variety of aircraft parts, is sold to Triumph Group, a Pennsylvania aircraft-parts supplier.

March 2003: Boeing announces it will hold a nationwide competition for the final-assembly site of the new 787.

December 2003: Washington wins the plane's final-assembly plant after legislators offer a $3.2 billion tax-break package over 20 years, plus additional sweeteners. Boeing plans an unprecedented amount of outsourcing to partners in Japan, Italy and elsewhere in the U.S.

February 2005: Boeing agrees to sell its Wichita aircraft-parts plant, part of the company for 75 years, to Onex of Canada. The plant is later renamed Spirit AeroSystems.

September 2005: The largest labor union at Boeing, the International Association of Machinists, overwhelmingly rejects a three-year contract proposal. The Machinists' first strike since a 69-day walkout in 1995 ultimately ends after one month.

February 2006: Boeing announces that instead of union Machinists, a nonunion contractor based in North Carolina will manage the delivery of airplane parts to the Everett 787 assembly line.

September 2008: Machinists strike again, this time for 57 days.

June 2009: Boeing announces a fifth delay to the 787. It says the strong-selling plane will have its first flight before the end of 2009, making it more than two years late.

July 2009: Boeing pays more than $1 billion to buy out partner Vought Aircraft Industries' half-share in their Charleston, S.C., joint venture, which makes rear fuselages for the 787 Dreamliner.

August 2009: Boeing announces a $2.5 billion write-off on the 787 program and delays the first delivery by an additional three months. The next week, Scott Carson, CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, is ousted and succeeded by Jim Albaugh, above, head of Boeing's St. Louis-based defense unit.

September 2009: Workers at the former Vought plant in Charleston vote to decertify the Machinists union, reversing a November 2007 vote to unionize.

Oct. 28, 2009: Boeing says it will build a second 787 final-assembly line in Charleston, after getting an incentive package worth about $450 million, including $170 million in upfront money. The company expects to add 3,800 workers within seven years, bringing the Boeing-related complex there to more than 6,400.

— David Turim, Seattle Times news researcher

Sources: Seattle Times archives, news services