Raytheon aviation units to impose pay cuts, furloughs amid coronavirus

The new Raytheon Technologies Corp. will impose temporary pay cuts and furloughs at its Pratt & Whitney and Collins Aerospace aviation subsidiaries to cope with a sharp downturn in the commercial aerospace industry due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The company’s defense business units including Tucson-based Raytheon Missiles & Defense are not affected by the actions and remain fully operational to serve critical defense needs, Raytheon Technologies CEO Greg Hayes said Tuesday in a letter to employees.

However, a company spokesman confirmed that a “handful” of employees recently left Raytheon Missiles & Defense as some operations were consolidated following the merger of Raytheon Co. and United Technologies Corp. to create the new Raytheon Technologies, finalized on April 2.

Across Raytheon’s corporate offices and Pratt & Whitney and Collins, salaried employees will take a 10% pay cut from June 1 through the end of the year and be given an added 15 days off this year, Hayes said, adding that he’ll take a 20% pay cut over the same period.

Hourly employees at Pratt & Whitney and Collins will be subject to furloughs that will vary by country and site, factoring in customer needs, local regulations and collective bargaining agreements, Hayes said.

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“Our commercial business partners have begun dramatically scaling back on their operations in order to preserve capital and protect the long-term needs of their businesses, and now we must do the same,” Hayes wrote, citing a 96% drop in airline travel in the U.S. alone.

Pratt & Whitney, a major provider of jet engines, is based in East Hartford, Connecticut. Collins which makes aircraft parts and components including avionics, is based in West Palm Beach, Florida.

Raytheon Missiles & Defense was created by a combination of the former Raytheon Missile Systems and the former Raytheon Integrated Defense radars and controls business, formerly headquartered in Tewksbury, Massachusetts.

The company is the Tucson region’s biggest employer, with about 13,000 local employees who develop and assemble many of the nation’s front-line weapon systems, including the Tomahawk cruise missile, the Sidewinder air-combat missile and the Standard Missile series of ship-defense missiles and ballistic missile interceptors.

Headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts, Raytheon Technologies Corp. is one of the largest aerospace and defense companies in the world, with about $74 billion in 2019 revenue and a global workforce of about 195,000.