Boeing Completes 787 Paint Hangars in Charleston

The new paint hangars at Boeing's North Charleston campus. Boeing Photo

Boeing has completed a key expansion of it's North Charleston production campus with the construction of its dual bay paint facility which is situated across ramp from its 88-30 final assembly building.

Since the North Charleston production started, Boeing had to fly 787 built there to paint facilities in Louisiana, California and Oregon after completing the first flight though there have been a couple of instances when the first flight and ferry flight were combined into the same flight but it was rare.  The paint hangars at Charleston should now save the time and expense of ferrying the airplanes to third party vendors to paint the Dreamliners.

Sources have told me that the first airplane to be painted at the brand new facility will be ZB451 (LN517) which is a 787-9 for American Airlines.  It should enter Bay 1 around January 3rd after the conclusion of the Christmas Holidays.