Aire Systems lays off 40 at Fort Smith plant

Trane Aire Systems has laid off 40 workers at its Fort Smith manufacturing plant.

Art Scheskie, director of site communications for Trane Commercial Systems, said a decline in orders resulting from the global economic downturn forced the company to eliminate assembly operations on the second shift.

The plant, located on Aire Systems Circle near the Fort Smith Landfill, will employ about 300 after the layoff, Scheskie said.

“It’s our hope, certainly, that they will come back as orders pick up,” Scheskie said when asked if the cuts are part of more permanent shift in production.

He said if economic conditions don’t improve within six months, then the 40 employees may be offered severance packages and outplacement support.

Trane Aire Systems builds large heating and air conditioning systems and are sold on a global level. Trane’s residential segment, which also has a plant in Fort Smith, builds smaller units for the domestic housing market, Scheskie explained. The Trane residential plant, located on Zero Street, employs less than 500 and was hit with a layoff of about 100 in late 2008. That layoff also was blamed on poor economic conditions.

Trane Aire Systems and Trane residential are owned by Piscataway, N.J.-based Ingersoll Rand, with most of the management oversight of the two Fort Smith plants based in St. Paul, Minn.