Hughes Division Lands Airline Navigation Job

Hughes Aircraft Co. said Tuesday that its information systems division won a $483.5-million federal contract to improve the accuracy of commercial airline navigation.

The Federal Aviation Administration made Hughes the prime contractor to develop a navigating system using the Global Positioning Satellite network. Most of the work on the navigating project, called the Wide Area Augmentation System, will be handled by the Hughes information systems office in Fullerton.

Hughes employees there have been working on the project since May under a $50-million interim FAA contract. The agency had canceled the original contract in April with Wilcox Electric Inc. in Kansas City, saying it was dissatisfied with that company’s performance.

Because Hughes already has staffed up for the interim work, a spokeswoman said it doesn’t expect to hire many more engineers in Fullerton.

Two years ago, Hughes started reducing employment at its 350-acre Fullerton complex, from 6,800 to about 900, mostly by transferring workers to other locations. But the trimming was halted last year with about 2,400 employees still there. Hughes began winning more contracts and started hiring again.

In the past year, Hughes has added about 100 jobs in Fullerton and has said it plans to hire 200 more engineers by Christmas in Fullerton, Reston, Va., and Saudi Arabia to handle a heavier workload, including three FAA contracts for software and hardware systems.

The federal agency is spending billions of dollars upgrading the nation’s air traffic control system, and Hughes had FAA contracts worth about $200 million before the latest award was announced Tuesday.