Friday, October 11, 2013

Boeing makes big push for 100 Dreamliner deliveries and a record number of 787 deliveries this month; 2nd 787-9 poised to join flight test effort

Boeing is conducting an aggressive effort to deliver a large number of 787s this month.  Even before mid month Boeing has delivered 5 787s many of these a spillover from September when they were expected to be delivered.  Through today, October 11th, 2013, Boeing has delivered 94 Dreamliners and will more than likely deliver it 100th 787 later this month.  Right now it's way to early to speculate to whom the 100 delivered 787 will go to as it depends on the progress of production flights.

Undeniably Boeing has been making a big push to deliver as many 787s as possible.  Today, alone there were 4 test flights including 2 B-1 flight.  A third was scheduled but didn't fly.  There are 3 Dreamliners that appear to be ready for delivery including the 6th for China Southern and the 2nd for Aeromexico.  One factor that can hinder deliveries, at least to US owners, is the continuing government shutdown.  While Boeing has the FAA inspectors back on the job at Charleston, the FAA still does not have its employees back in the office that process the aircraft registration and title transfers.  Boeing said that they can be mailed in but there still may be some delays due to the shutdown.  Deliveries to ILFC and United can be affected as well as to US based BBJ customers, for one of whom there is an aircraft about to start assembly.  Given the progression here's how I see the remainder of October shaking out in terms of 787 deliveries:

China Southern - 2 (1 each from Charleston and Everett)
Japan Airlines - 1 (from Everett)
Hainan Airlines - 1 (from Charleston)
Qatar Airways - 1 (from Charleston)
ILFC/Aeromexico - 2 (from Everett, dependent on government shutdown)
Royal Brunei Airlines - 1 (from Everett)
United Airlines - 1 (from Charleston, dependent on government shutdown)

Other deliveries that may take place this month:
Air India (from Everett)
Japan Airlines (from Charleston)

Deliveries from Charleston have resumed after almost 3 months which is very good news.  Between September 30th and Oct. 9th, the Charleston facility delivered 4 787s and can deliver anywhere from 3 to 5 more this month which will help tremendously with the inventory there.  What will be interesting to see is whether Boeing can bring down the number of production test flights required for the Charleston built 787s.  The aircraft that were delivered recently needed many more flights than the ones built at Everett but this is probably attributable to Charleston still trying to ramp up the learning curve.  As time goes on the build quality should improve.  Everett wen through the same thing with some of the early delivered 787s.

Lastly the second 787-9 is getting close to making its first flight and joining its sister-ship at Boeing Field for test and certification activities.  ZB002 (LN 133, N789FT) was just moved from the fuel dock at Everett to a stall space on the flightline.  It should fly by Oct. 24th if it encounters no issues on pre-flight ground testing that should commence shortly.  To put the schedule in perspective.  It took ZB001 (LN 126, N787EX) 24 days from roll out to first flight.  ZB002 rolled out on September 30th and applying the same metric to this aircraft should give a first flight date of around Oct. 24th.  I do expect it to fly earlier than that as Boeing has improved knowledge from the ZB001's pre-flight.  Again this all assumes that ZB002 doesn't have any issues in the run up to first flight.  Another interesting stat is that ZB001 took 86 days in final assembly including painting and installation of test equipment.  ZA002 improved that number by 6 days to a total of 80 days in final assembly.  Boeing should be able to apply lessons learned from the first aircraft to get the 2nd aircraft up sooner.  We'll know by the 24th.

Full 787 List

Current 787 Production List

Delivered 787 List

787 Monthly Delivery Tracking

787 Customer Delivery

787-9 Flight Test Hours

 








8 comments:

larmeyers said...

Uresh, do you know if there is something going on with LN129 (Qatar) in Charleston? It seems to be stuck in final assembly and there's already been one frame that shows complete which started assembly later.

Uresh said...

Customer inspections. Qatar is being very picky

TurtleLuv said...

I was right, line 8 (JA801A, the first delivered 787), after two weeks being reconfigured for regional/long haul, flew its first international flight into Beijing today:

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/JA801A/history/20131015/0025Z/RJTT/ZBAA

And it looks like line 7 (JA803A) is going through the same reconfig now. So all three of these very early build frames, lines 7, 8, and 9, will be flying long haul to Singapore and possibly other 6+ hour routes.

Dave said...

What seating plan do these have now?

Vab Andleigh said...

Air India might have finally gotten its financing in order, at least for 12 787s.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/news-by-industry/transportation/airlines-/-aviation/air-india-ties-up-financing-for-12-boeing-787-dreamliners/articleshow/24205964.cms

TurtleLuv said...

I think lines 7,8 and 9 (and soon 41) are converted to the 222 seats international seating, doing away with the 264 seat domestic seating layout they had before. Newer, lighter frames now have a 335 seat domestic layout, so ANA probably thought they'd do better flying the earlier heavier frames internationally with fewer passengers. So now they should have:
335 : Domestic
222 : International (Regional)
158 : International
169 : International w/ Premium Economy

This is not fact checked btw, I'm speculating. I wonder if they'll convert the 158s to 169s.

1coolguy1 said...

Uresh -
Interesting to see LN 20 for JAL moving from Change Incorporation to Production Testing: Is this simply a function of available labor, JAL demanding more planes, Boeing getting through their backlog, etc or what?
Does this indicate they will now be moving on the Storage/Change Incorporation and Change Incorporation planes?

Uresh said...

It's a function of Boeing trying to deliver planes that they built for customers...nothing surprising here. They're trying to deliver them when they were promised.