Sunday, August 19, 2012

August 787 deliveries appears to be slipping

Looks like Boeing won't be delivering as many 787s as we all thought in August as sources tell me that there looks to be slips in some deliveries from August to September.  I'm not sure about any knock on effect, if any, would be to downstream deliveries.  Earlier I reported that Boeing could deliver as many as 7 Dreamliners this month.  One has already been delivered and it does appear that there could be as many as two this coming week, one to ANA and one to Qatar. There has been some slowdown in 787 flight test activity and not as many B-1 flights as I thought would have taken place by now in order to make 7 deliveries by the end of August.  At this point I'm not sure which 787 deliveries are being pushed to September and as always delivery information should always be taken with a grain of salt due to nature of the 787 program and customer preferences.

As far as Air India and the 787, everyones' favorite topic, I've been hearing new estimates for first delivery ranging from this week to sometime in mid to late September.  This is one that I've stopped believing in any estimates not that the people who gave the information are wrong but that Air India is so disorganized and mismanaged that it's not possible to figure when they'll take actual delivery. This airline has the ability to come to the table and at the very last minute pulled the rug out at the delivery ceremony and refuse to take delivery and make the final payment.  One thing is for sure...Boeing is ready to turn the aircraft over to the airline, three of them with a fourth waiting in the proverbial wings.  So what is the problem?  Though no one has spoken publicly about it in definitive terms, the fact that Air India is actively (read: desperately) trying to arrange financing to pay for the deliveries. The Ministry of Finance has put the hold on the deliveries though they haven't made publicly why they put the hold on after the Indian Cabinet itself had approved for the deliveries to take place in accordance with the compensation agreement hammered out between the airline and Boeing.  Air India financial health is in a very precarious situation that banks aren't exactly lining up to extend any financing even if the 787s were used as collateral.  The management of Air India and the GoI has taken pains to being down this airline and to frag its once stellar reputation through the mud.  The drama continues.



12 comments:

graeme77 said...

Boeing's efforts to get 787's out the door conjures up the old Australian metaphor of attempting to pass a brick through the latter end of the digestive system.
Requiring some effort.

Uresh said...

Boeing's efforts are actually pretty good. ANother 787 (for United) is right now on its first flight and two 787s should be delivered this coming week. The following week I think will see 2 more delivieries. and next month should be just as good. If Air India gets its shit together than you will see even more 787s being delivered.

johnv777 said...

Uresh, for the past several weeks I have suspected what your post today confirms - namely that 7 deliveries in August was too optimistic. I know that RobK was forecasting 7 but is is now too late in the month for this to happen. I think that 4-5 is more realistic, especially since LN69 has not had its first flight yet, and LN #70 is a long shot. On the other hand, there have been 4 B1 flights in August- this is very encouraging, and we may see the delivery pace pick up in September. I do not even try to to second guess our friends in India, so any deliveries to AI will be icing on the cake.
I also suspect that LN# 54 for AI will have its B1 soon, since it was actually ready for its B1 when it suffered its engine failure. All in all I do see progress, albeit not as fast as we would all like to see. I commend Boeing for keeping it safe and not rushing to meet numbers.

TurtleLuv said...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444233104577595282112313816.html

currently taking as many as eight test flights to deliver 787's vs 2-3 for 737/777s

Joostdg said...

Its hopefull thinking but wanted to share this article:

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/
272690/india-expects-induct-first-787.html

johnv777 said...

Today, 8/20/12 is the date last mentioned as the delivery date for LN7, ZA100, JA803A for ANA. Hope it happens.

Col. Mustard said...

Once a plane has had its b1 flight, what remains to be done to get it to the point of delivery?

Peter said...

Why doesn't Boeing just abandon this order and deliver the (refurbished) aircraft to airlines that really want them.

Johanny said...

Looks like ZA135/LN66 will be in the new regional config with 222 seats. HND-PEK starting at the end of October. Now the question is whether ZA100/LN7 is in this or the "original" 264 seat

See the press release today:
http://www.ana.co.jp/eng/aboutana/press/2012/120821.html

HK Expat said...

For an airline scheduled to take delivery of its first 787 today, Qatar Airlines is extremely quiet in the media about it... In comparison to the fanfare of Ethiopian, United etc... it's almost concerning!

Uresh said...

I share your concern and actually just emailed someone about it.

graeme77 said...

Flightglobal is reporting that LAN will take their first deivery on August 31, thus becoming the FOURTH customer to recieve the aircraft... So Qatar will be the fifth then??

http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/lan-to-take-delivery-of-787-on-31-august-375723/