Friday, May 29, 2015

787 May Month End Review


Boeing had a pretty good month delivering 12 787s to customers.  Among the highlights is the 13th and last 787-8 for TUI Travel and 2 787-8 for American Airlines.  It does seem that for American the Zodiac seat issue is behind them but it appears the same cannot said for Etihad.  They have 3 787-9s waiting on the flightline, only 1 of which has flown.  Boeing achieved and production efficiency ratio of 0.83 (roll out of 10 787s vs. delivery of 12 aircraft).  Again anything lower than 1 is a good sign that Boeing is moving to reduce the backlog of 787s and make the production, testing and delivery process more efficient.  Overall production efficiency is just under 1 at 0.98 with Charleston being a little bit more efficient (0.94) versus Everett (1.0) thus far this year.

One notable achievement is that Boeing was able to deliver a 787-9 to Scoot in under 70 days from the time the aircraft started final assembly.  ZB130 (LN 308, 9V-OJD) started final assembly on March 23, 2015, rolled out on April 22nd, 2015, had its first flight on May 6, 2015 and was delivered on May 29th, 2015.  A total of 67 days.  This may well have been a test of new processes in the production system designed to cut build and delivery time significantly especially before the two main 787 lines in 40-26 and 88-30 go up in rate by the end of this year.  Eventually both lines are to be producing 7 aircraft each by the end of the decade but the upshot is that Boeing needs to cut the total time from the start of final assembly to delivery.

Boeing started final assembly on 10 787s including a 787-8 BBJ for the Sultan of Brunei and Air Canada's first 787-9.  Of these 10, 4 are 787-9 and 6 are 787-8.  Over the course of the next few months I expect that this ratio will change as the number of 787-8 remaining to be built (barring new orders) decreases.  If Boeing is to sell more 787-8s, I am starting to believe that they will need to look to reduce weight of the aircraft as well as introduce other fuel saving measures including urging GE and Rolls Royce to improve the fuel burn of their engines.  Roll Royce seems to be on that path with the Trent-1000-TEN.

Boeing rolled out 10 787s including the first 787-8 for PrivatAir.  Of the 10 rolled out, 5 are 787-8 and 5 are 787-9.

For next month Boeing should deliver 14 787s prior to the end of the second quarter.  Of these 14, 9 should be 787-9 including the three aforementioned Etihad airplanes.  Air India's final 787-8 (assuming they convert the remaining 6 into 787-9s) will also be delivered in June as will Japan Airlines' first 787-9 which coincidentally is the first of the 3 787-9 test airplanes to be delivered.  Another notable delivery is the first 787-9 for Vietnam Airlines which is rumored to be performing the flying display at this year's Paris Airshow in mid June.  Lastly, the penultimate 787-8 for both Kenya Airways and Xiamen Airlines will be delivered in June.

787 Full Production Table
787 Build Location By Operator 
787 Build Location By Customer

12 comments:

Dave said...

I have a question regarding LN 338 for Virgin Atlantic Airways,
here you have the registration as G-VBZZ and myself and airliner list have it as G-VCRU which is correct I personally think here is more likely to be right

Uresh said...

The registration info is from a very reliable source and I have doubts about the accuracy.

Unknown said...

Uresh, on your "Monthly Delivery Tracking" table, you only show 11 deliveries for May.

grahamj said...

The 787-9 flies 16% more people 6% farther than the 787-8. With 5% more fuel, and the same wing. No more than 1 PIP difference in the engines (correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't the 789 engines available as a high thrust option on the 788?). It doesn't add up. 63.4 seat miles per gallon on the 789 vs 56.98 for the 788, an 11% difference in favor of the 789. There's something more than weight going on. The only stated difference is laminar flow on some surfaces. Can somebody tell me what's going on?

Vab Andleigh said...

it seems Air India might not be able to upgrade its remaining 787-8 order to the 787-9 after failing to get approval of its Board

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/transportation/airlines-/-aviation/air-india-shelves-plan-to-acquire-boeing-787-9-aircraft/articleshow/47529900.cms

TravelingMan said...

Yeah, that's too bad. It's got better range and capacity at great fuel savings. I travel to India just about every summer. It'd be nice if Air India could offer some competing prices to the other airlines that fly between the US and India. I've flown there and back on American, Lufthansa, British Airways, Turkish Air and several others I can't recall right offhand. I can't ever recall seeing an affordable economy fair offered by Air India though. Perhaps I've just overlooked it.

Daetrin said...

Only 3+ weeks to go and no B-1 flights in weeks. Seems less likely they will hit their June delivery goals each day. Any thoughts on why the paucity of flight testing recently for B flights?

Uresh said...

If you take a look at recent trends, Boeing has been averaging around 3 to 4 flights before delivery to the customer and they need an average of 29 days (trending down) between first flight and delivery. Given that it's very, VERY early in June, I think it's premature to say that they won't hit their delivery target in June especially if they need to fly only 4-5 airplanes on their B-1 flight and the rest need to conduct their customer flights.

Vab Andleigh said...

Check out this article talking about how Boeing is minimizing changes between 787-9 and the -10 to save development costs and time, applying lessons learned from earlier. Bodes well for the -10

http://www.bizjournals.com/wichita/blog/2015/06/how-an-innovation-minded-boeing-engineer-saved.html

Unknown said...

Japan Airlines and ANA will be registrated as follows:

Japan Airlines: ZB025(L/N458) will be JA865J.

ANA: ZB689(L/N467) will be JA882A.(Because JA881A has already been registered in the "Asahi air".)

Traveler said...

Any word on potential 787 orders at the Paris air show?

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