Friday, October 12, 2012

Official handover of Qatar's first 787 sliding into November

According to a new post by Strategic Aero's Saj Ahmad, the official handover of Qatar's first 787 will slide into early November.  The cause is the delayed contractual delivery to Qatar was due to the delays caused by the Thales IFE that Qatar ordered.  Currently, the aircraft is in Victorville, CA undergoing installation of the IFE.  It is unclear what effects this may have on future deliveries to Qatar Airways but Saj is saying that at least one 787 planned for delivery to the Doha based carrier will be delivered early next year.  There are currently 2 787s for Qatar Airways waiting on the Boeing flightline and I'm not sure how the deliveries of these two airplanes is affected.  One of the planes has flown its first flight while the other has not.

It is important to note that despite the public flogging by Akbar Al Baker, Qatar isn't holding Boeing responsible for the current delays as the delays are the fault of Thales.

1 comment:

Trapperpk said...

The rule of self imposed excellence assumes added risk not calculated on standard configurations. I respect Qatar's pursuit of excellence. But that assumes additional risk on an already complex innovation. At least Boeing is off the hook on this issue for now.