Thursday, April 18, 2013

Wall Street Journal: 787 battery re-certification approval to come Friday, April 19

In an article released this evening, the Wall Street Journal says the FAA will certify the redesign battery and battery containment system as safe for commercial use by tomorrow, April 19th.  This will allow Boeing to immediately begin work on retrofitting the 50 787s around the world with the new design and allow the airlines to resume regular passenger service as early as the end of this month. Anticipate that it will take Boeing about 6 weeks to retrofit all 50 airplanes while teams of technicians will do the same to 787s at Everett and Charleston.

Boeing resumed regular production testing today and I expect a slew of 787s to take to the skies on their B-1 flights starting as early as tomorrow.  Boeing has 34 787 in Charleston and Everett awaiting production flight tests and delivery. Deliveries can resume, I believe as early as the last week of April though May is a better bet.  Boeing will need to deliver about 8 787s a month to clear the backlog that has built up over the last three months.  This is doable but will be a challenge.

 






5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow, this is great news! Based on previous info, I did not expect acceptance to happen tomorrow.

Here is another question though. Have the Chinese authorities certified the 787 yet? I know last year that issue prevented the Chinese frames from being delivered. It seems like Boeing would not be flying LN-34 right now if the China Southern could not take delivery.

Has this issue been resolved?

Phil said...

The approval is forthcoming:

http://news.yahoo.com/faa-approves-boeing-dreamliner-battery-184605885.html

An FAA directive, and instructions to operators, will take effect when published in the Federal Register early next week.

HI Flyer said...

Hallelujah, the FAA ruling on the battery fix went official today.

http://money.cnn.com/2013/04/19/news/economy/boeing-dreamliner/index.html?hpt=hp_t3


HI Flyer said...

Hallelujah, the FAA ruling on the 787 battery fix became official today.

http://money.cnn.com/2013/04/19/news/economy/boeing-dreamliner/index.html?hpt=hp_t3

Andrew Munsell said...

Uresh,
Official FAA announcement: http://www.faa.gov/news/press_releases/news_story.cfm?newsId=14554

Official Boeing announcement:
http://boeing.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=43&item=2660

Official NTSB forum on LiON Batteries in Transportation:
http://www.ntsb.gov/news/events/2013/batteryforum/index.html