Bell Textron is laying off 285 employees in Fort Worth, Amarillo and Wichita, Kansas, according to an email statement from the company.
The cuts come as the U.S. House Armed Services committee shuffles the budget for Bell Textron’s marquee contract and as Pentagon officials warn that the Iran War is depleting its coffers.
According to Bell Textron, approximately 285 employees were laid off at three of the Fort Worth-based aerospace facilities. Also, for certain employees, a three-week furlough beginning June 15 was issued.
“Staffing decisions like this are difficult, but they are also necessary to align the company to market realities and position it for the long term,” the company said in a statement.
The impacted Kansas and Amarillo facilities are involved in the production of the MV-75 Cheyenne II aircraft, slated to replace the iconic UH-60 Black Hawk as the Army’s long-range assault aircraft. According to Fort Worth Report, the Kansas facility, which opened earlier this year, assembles the aircraft’s fuselage, while Amarillo houses a final assembly complex for Bell Textron’s vertical lift products.
Bell Textron’s V-280 Valor, a not-quite-helicopter tilt-rotor aircraft, was selected to become the Army’s Future Long Range Assault Aircraft, part of the Future Vertical Lift program, in 2022. It was officially named the MV-75 Cheyenne II by the Army earlier this year.
According to government filings, the project is “actively accelerating completion of development, delivery of prototypes and production” at the direction of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and the Army plans to initiate production orders in fiscal year 2028.
The House Armed Services Committee recently released the initial text for a $1.15 trillion fiscal 2027 National Defense Authorization Act, called the chairman’s mark, which comes with changes to the budgets of Future Vertical Lift and Future Long Range Assault Aircraft. The draft, which will be marked up by the committee on June 4, budgets no funds for procurement of the Future Vertical Lift family of systems, compared with the White House’s request for $127 million, while adding the same number to Future Long Range Assault Aircraft development. The changes come with the note “program realignment for operational test aircraft,” which could indicate delays on the Pentagon side.
The Wall Street Journal reported in a May 14 article that the Army faces a $2 billion-$6 billion shortfall from the Iran War and extended deployment of the National Guard in Washington and at the border. Without Congressional appropriations for the war, the Iran conflict has been funded by the Defense Department’s annual operations and maintenance budget. Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security — now partially funded after an extended shutdown — owes the Army nearly $2 billion for the reinforcements, which has not yet been paid.