| 787 Dreamliner still a winner |
Boeing says it will still make a profit on its 787 Dreamliner program, now the most delayed — and, according to analysts, the most expensive — jet in the company’s history.
Even as executives announced a massive $2.5 billion write-off associated with the first-flight delays that now stretch to 28 months, they expressed confidence in its latest revised schedule.
Analysts are concerned about the mounting costs, but most were relieved the Dreamliner program is not in the red.
The new plan calls for the 787 to make its first flight by the end of this year.
Boeing also extended its flight-test program by one to three months longer than previously planned, so the first delivery to initial customer All Nippon Airways of Japan is now due in the final quarter of 2010.
The new timetable came two months after the plane maker announced a shocking last-minute delay to the planned first flight in June, postponed after stress tests revealed a structural flaw where the upper wing joins the side of the fuselage.
Pat Shanahan, vice president of airplane programs, said the “more conservative” flight-test schedule will provide a buffer to protect customer delivery dates from further slippage.
“We have left a little wiggle room, and it’s little,” Shanahan said. “It’s just to accommodate any disruption we might have in flight test or incorporating the (fix to the) side of body.”
Boeing Commercial Airplanes CEO Scott Carson said that because the final-assembly line in Everett can roll out up to seven jets per month, a second line will be needed to meet the goal of delivering 10 Dreamliners a month by the end of 2013.
Boeing has said contenders for the second line are Everett; North Charleston, S.C.; and some unnamed locations. A site choice is due by the end of the year.
Boeing said it will take a $2.5 billion accounting charge this quarter because it considers the first three Dreamliners built to fly — airplanes that have been extensively modified and re-modified — unsellable and suitable only for flight tests.
“Each airplane, while fully suited for the rigorous flight-test program and fully capable of meeting FAA certification requirements, has been determined to have limited commercial value,” Carson said.
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