Kenya Airways finally taking last 2 787 on order

After being placed in storage for months, due to the expiration of the Export-Import Bank's charter and unable to line up other financing, Kenya Airways will be finally taking delivery of the 2 787-8s that had been built.  the aircraft will be delivered today with flyaway scheduled for Oct. 30th.

The Ex-Im bank fiasco kept the two aircraft in limbo while the carrier struggled to find alternate sources of financing the delivery payments to Boeing which would have been provided by the bank.  Politics kept the re-authorization of the charter stuck in committee until a large majority of Congress said enough is enough and used a little known and little used procedure to get the re-authorization out of committee and to the full House floor where it was approved last night.  The bill still has to be approved by the Senate before being signed into law.

I do suspect that Kenya should be able to get short term bridge financing until the Senate passes the re-authorization.

speaking of 787 deliveries, it appears that a 787-9 for KLM won't be delivered until December or maybe even later according to sources.  ZB234 (LN356, PH-BHA) has been expected to be delivered in mid November.  An interesting twist is that a sister ship, ZB235 (LN 368, PH-BHC) appears, for now, to be holding to its delivery schedule of mid November.  This development may indicate there these is some issue with ZB234 allowing ZB235 to jump in front of the delivery schedule. However this is all preliminary and ZB235's delivery may also be delayed.