By AP/KWMU
Chicago – Chicago-based Boeing is scaling down its air-traffic management unit, amid weak demand for the three-year-old business it once had high hopes for.
The company announced Thursday it's making the business a part of Phantom Works. That's Boeing's St. Louis-based research and development unit.
The move takes effect April first, when the air-traffic management enterprise also comes under new leadership. A 26-year Boeing veteran, Kevin Brown, is succeeding John Hayhurst, who's retiring.
When the venture was launched in 2001, Boeing said its proposal for an overhauled air-traffic control system would make air travel safer and more efficient. But the terrorist attacks that occurred soon afterward cooled the interest of governments that had considered investing in it.