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Boeing Delays 1st Flight of Dreamliner
June 24, 2009
The New York Times
By CHRISTOPHER DREW
The Boeing Company said Tuesday that it would again delay the
first flight of its new jet, the 787, the latest setback in a program that is
considered crucial to the plane maker’s future.
“First flight and first delivery will be rescheduled following the final
determination of the required modification and testing plan,” Boeing said in a
statement. “It will be several weeks before the new schedule is available.”
Boeing had said in December that the first flight of the jet, the Dreamliner,
would take place in the second quarter of 2009, in time for delivers to be made
in the first quarter of next year. It had initially hoped the plane would fly
before the end of 2008 and had expected to make its first deliveries in late
2009.
At that time, Boeing attributed the delay to a strike by the International
Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers and also said it had encountered
problems with fasteners used on early production airplanes.
But on Tuesday, the company said the flight needed to be delayed in order to
need to reinforce an area within the side-of-body section of the aircraft. The
aircraft’s airframe made from lightweight composite material instead of
aluminum.
“Structural modifications like these are not uncommon in the development of new
airplanes, and this is not an issue related to our choice of materials or the
assembly and installation work of our team,” Scott Carson, the president of
Boeing Commercial Airplanes, said in a statement.
The 787, a wide-bodied, long-range aircraft, is expected to be 20 percent more
fuel efficient than other planes used on long trips.
Boeing, which has worked on the plane since the late 1990s, announced its first
order for the 787 in 2004. Since then, it has received nearly 900 orders from
many of the world’s biggest airlines, making it the most popular new plane in
the company’s history.
The decision to delay the plane’s first flight came after Mr. Carson had sought
last week at the Paris Air Show to dispel some of the pessimism in the
commercial aviation industry. Mr. Carson had said the global economy was showing
signs of a recovery, and he predicted a resumption of growth in airline traffic
as early as 2010.
The first 787 delivery, to All Nippon Airways, was scheduled for the first
quarter of 2010. It was not immediately clear how that order would be affected
by the flight delay. American customers for the Dreamliner include Delta Air
Lines, which inherited orders placed by Northwest Airlines when the two
companies merged this year, as well as Continental Airlines and American
Airlines.
Boeing also had said that the 787 backlog extends into 2020.
Stock analysts had said that a successful first flight could have given Boeing’s
stock, which had risen in recent months on expectations for the Dreamliner
production, another pop. But given the delay, Boeing’s stock dropped about 6
percent early Tuesday, to about $44 a share, on the New York Stock Exchange
