Is Boeing’s Dreamliner a Pipe Dream?
The completion date of Boeing’s Dreamliner, an innovative and high-profile project, has already been pushed back three times. All Nippon Airways, the Japanese airline, will receive its planes first, with other customers not able to take delivery until 2011 or beyond.
This would be nearly two years after the company had expected to begin delivering the planes to airlines, which have rushed to place orders for the fuel-efficient jet. Their enthusiasm had made the Dreamliner the most popular program in Boeing history, with more than 60 airlines placing orders for more than 800 planes.
But high expectations for the aircraft have met with some hard realities, mainly the difficulty of producing a plane that relies on technological breakthroughs, like an airframe made from lightweight composite material instead of aluminum. It also relies on a supply chain that stretches across the globe, as multiple suppliers in many countries are producing the more than four million parts that will go into the plane.
It is expected that the Dreamliner’s first test flight will not take place until well into 2009. Yvonne Leach, a spokeswoman for Boeing Commercial Airplanes, declined to comment on the reports of the delay, adding Friday that she would neither confirm nor deny them.
“We’re currently conducting the assessment and it’s not complete yet,†Ms. Leach said. Asked when any decision might be announced, Ms. Leach said: “We don’t have a firm date. We truly have not decided when we are going to announce.†She added that Boeing would try to notify customers and suppliers 24 hours in advance of a public announcement, although she said that any notification “could come earlier†than that.
Boeing shares have fallen by 55 percent since the beginning of the year, hurt by the Dreamliner delays, a two-month strike by machinists and the weakening stock market in general.
The next-generation jet had faced a number of production setbacks, including the strike by 27,000 assembly workers that shut down Boeing’s commercial aircraft factories for two months earlier this fall.
The Dreamliner, a midsize twin-engine plane, was an instant hit among airlines, which lined up to buy it because of its fuel-sipping engine and lightweight airframe, both of which save on fuel consumption and bills. Since then, however, engineering and production problems have presented one challenge after another.
Karen
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