Boeing Looking More Seriously at 2nd 787 Final Asembly Line

In an interview with reporters Mike Mecham, Guy Norris and Jens Flottau, Boeing CEO Jim McNerney gave the strongest indication that Boeing will go ahead with a 2nd production line for the 787. According to the Aviation Week article the decision may come as early as late this year with an year of starting operations in late 2010 when work on the 787-9 will be expected to get underway.

Aviation Week cites sources as saying that the second line announcement can come very soon and that North Charleston, SC has been chosen as the sight of the 2nd final assembly line. North Charleston does have the advantage of being nonunion as well as the locale for current 787 assembly activities done by Global Aeronautica (main fuselage integration) and Vought (rear fuselage fabrication and integration) as well established logistics capabilities and plenty of land to build a final assembly building near the current Vought and GA facilities. Boeing would have to only fly in the forward fuselage from Wichita and the wings from Japan (not counting the structures from Alenia in Italy and the structures from Fuji and Kawasaki in Japan that will go into the GA site as it currently does).

Predictably the Boeing Unions in Everett (SPEEA and IAM 751) are not happy at the prospect and they may have even more reason to worry in my opinion. If Boeing goes ahead with a South Carolina assembly plant, they could add enough space at that plant to possibly shift all 787 final assembly from Everett and there would be nothing that IAM or SPEEA could do about it especially if the new final assembly line is more efficient than the Everett line.

Aviation Week's 787 Second Line Article