Sunday, February 21, 2016
787 delivery and production rate expected to be at 10 for February
Boeing is on track to deliver 10 787s (3 x 787-8 and 7 x 787-9). These numbers are an improvement from January where Boeing delivered 7 airplanes. I expect that Boeing will also roll out 10 787s from it's two manufacturing plants with each location pushing out 5 airplanes each. By May there will be 6 787s coming out of each plant.
The 100th 787 built by Boeing North Charleston was among the airplanes that were delivered thus far in the month. This airplane was a 787-8, ZA830 (LN 387, N813AN) and was delivered to American Airlines. This airplane is American's 14th 787 delivered and they are expected to receive 3 more 787-8 and 4 787-9s during this year.
Speaking of 787 deliveries from Charleston, there is one 787-9 for Virgin Atlantic that seems ready for delivery, however it has spent the last few weeks back inside building 88-30 for some sort of repair to the area of the wing near the engine. It still is inside the building but is tentatively scheduled to fly a C-2 customer flight around February 24th and be delivered to the airline on March 1st though I will watch the schedule on this particular aircraft.
With The Charleston plant now operating at a higher production rate, deliveries have not been keeping pace with the number of roll outs and thus the space to park airplanes is getting tighter even with Boeing sending airplanes to be painted at Portland, Victorville, and Acadiana. Currently, with 10 787s that are rolled out but not delivered, 8 are parked outside the final assembly hall while two are being painted at different locations. Boeing is constructing new flightline stalls at Charleston but they're not finished yet though I suspect they should be close to completion by the time they start rolling out at 6/month sometime in May at Charleston.
As we enter the last week of February we should see the final 5 airplanes that are already ready for delivered, handed over to their new owners.
As for March, right now it appears that there are 16 deliveries scheduled for the final month of the 1st quarter but as we have seen, these things change.
787 Full Production Table
Uresh,
ReplyDeleteAny idea when the first airplane wil enter the Charleston paint hangar? Thanks.
I'm not sure right now.
ReplyDeleteUresh:
ReplyDeleteYou project 14 deliveries in March, but have 16 Serial Numbers with March Delivery on the Current Production Table ? Perhaps you expect 2 to slip into April (maybe 401 & 414) ???
Thx,
Jack
Yeah, it's 16, my mistake. Thanks for the catch.
ReplyDeleteHello, Uresh:
ReplyDeleteIs Charleston having some issues with getting B-1 flights to occur as scheduled? LN 399 and LN 401 are on your list to have B-1 flights on 2/22 which did not occur. And the B-1 flights on these two birds has been pushed back several times. The same thing happened on LN 395 and LN 397. Can you shed any light on this?
Thanks for all your work.
Don
Sometimes the schedule is driven by the customer but I don't have any insight if there are any seats and why.
ReplyDeleteThe reason for the VAA airline going back into the factory was for rework after a fire on the wing area. Cannot comment further on this at this time though on the board. Cheers
ReplyDeleteUresh - Any idea what United's pre-delivery flights increased so with the last 2 planes?
ReplyDeleteThe last 2 had 7 and 9 flights, while the prior 5 planes had 4,5,4,5 and 2, respectively.
Not sure, they probably wanted to make sure they dot all the "i's" and cross all the "t's". Perhaps they're taking a page from U-Turn Al's playbook.
ReplyDeleteLooks like Charleston may need a few extra pilots?
ReplyDeleteLAN 789 in the air at last!
ReplyDelete