Boeing lays out road map for 787 Dreamliner's first flight and commercial delivery

10 April 2008

Everett: Boeing announced a revised plan for first flight and initial deliveries of the 787 Dreamliner including additional time in the schedule to reduce risk of further delays on the programme.

It said while significant progress had been made assembling Airplane #1, first flight was being rescheduled owing to a number of reasons, such as slower than expected completion of work travelling from supplier facilities into Boeing's final assembly line, unanticipated re-work, and the addition of margin into the testing schedule.

The new delivery schedule, it said, is based on a more conservative production plan worked out in tandem with its 787 production team. Under the new production plan Boeing will undertake to make 25 deliveries of the aircraft in 2009.

First flight
Boeing said that first flight of the 787 Dreamliner was now being positioned for the fourth quarter of 2008, against the end of the second quarter earlier. Consequently, first commercial delivery was now slated for the third quarter of 2009, instead of the first quarter.

Meanwhile, senior Boeing officials expressed confidence in the new plan. "Over the past few months, we have taken strong actions to confront and overcome start-up issues on the programme, and we have made solid progress," said Boeing Commercial Airplanes president, and CEO, Scott Carson.

"Nevertheless, the traveled work situation and some unanticipated rework have prevented us from hitting the milestones we laid out in January. Our revised schedule is built upon an achievable, high-confidence plan for getting us to our power-on and first-flight milestones. Also, while the fundamental technologies and design of the 787 remain sound, we have inserted some additional schedule margin for dealing with other issues we may uncover in testing prior to first flight and in the flight test program."