United Airlines to take 250 787 to be delivered

United Airlines is suppose take the 250th 787 to be delivered to a customer tomorrow.  The aircraft is ZB170 (LN 269, N35953) is a 787-9 built at Boeing's North Charleston plant.  Boeing is quickly closing on delivering 25% of their total 787 orders and will most likely accomplish that next month barring any large firm orders.

Boeing announces the start of final assembly of 1st Charleston built 787-9

First Charleston Built 787-9 for United Airlines.  Boeing Photo

Boeing announced the start of final assembly on the first 787-9 to be built at their North Charleston facility and which will ultimately be delivered to United Airlines in about 3 months time.  The aircraft, ZB170 (LN270, N35953) was loaded into position 1A on November 23rd according to my sources.

Boeing is aggressively expanding its footprint in the North Charleston area and plans to build all three version of the 787 at the plant.

Here is Boeing's press release on the start of final assembly of ZB170.

Boeing South Carolina Begins Final Assembly of its First 787-9 Dreamliner

North Charleston site joins Everett, Wash., team in building newest 787

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C., Nov. 24, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Boeing (NYSE: BA) has started final assembly of the 787-9 Dreamliner at its South Carolina facility. The team began joining large fuselage sections of the newest 787 Nov. 22 on schedule, a proud milestone for the South Carolina team and another sign of stability for the program.  

The North Charleston, S.C., site joins Boeing's Everett, Wash., final assembly, which began 787-9 production in May 2013. United Airlines will take delivery of the first South Carolina-built 787-9. 

"Our team is well prepared and eager to assemble the 787-9 Dreamliner," said Jack Jones, vice president and general manager of Boeing South Carolina. "Achieving this significant milestone in our final assembly operations demonstrates that we're performing well here at Boeing South Carolina. We're looking forward to delivering our first South Carolina-built 787-9 to United Airlines, and delivering 787-9s as well as 787-8s to all our customers." 

The 787-9 complements and extends the 787 family, offering airlines the ability to grow routes opened with the 787-8. With the fuselage stretched by 20 feet (6 meters), the 787-9 can fly up to 40 more passengers an additional 450 nautical miles (830 kilometers) with the same exceptional environmental performance – 20 percent less fuel use and 20 percent fewer emissions than the airplanes it replaces. The 787-9 leverages the visionary design of the 787-8, offering passenger-pleasing features such as large, dimmable windows, large stow bins, modern LED lighting, higher humidity, a lower cabin altitude, cleaner air and a smoother ride.

Charleston to start building 787-9

Since Boeing's 787 plant in North Charleston opened in 2011 it has exclusively built the 787-8.  This Sunday (Nov. 23rd) that will change when ZB170 (LN 269, N35953) is loaded into position 1A at the North Charleston plant to start the final assembly process.  The aircraft is destined for United Airlines and should be delivered sometime in March.

This is a huge milestone as the future of the 787 seems to be tied to the 787-9 and, to certain extent, the 787-10.  As the production rate increases in North Charleston there should be more 787-9s being built in North Charleston but for the first year or so most of the 787s that are built in Boeing North Charleston will be the 787-8.  In 2015 I expect the lion share of 787-9 that are delivered will be built in Everett.

Boeing South Carolina achieves 3/month 787 production rate.

Boeing revealed to its employees yesterday that the South Carolina plant has achieved the planned 787 production rate of 3 airplanes/month when ZA660 (LN 224, 5Y-KZF) entered into position 0 on the final assembly line in plant 88-30 on June 24th.  This aircraft is destined for Kenya Airways and should deliver around September of this year.  I am assuming that Everett will slow down to 7/month given the rate change.  This means that Charleston should load a new 787 every 10 days while Everett will load a 787 every 8.6 days for each line (40-26 and 40-24).

This was an important milestone for this plant especially in light of a muckraking report in a certain Seattle newspaper this past week. 

Boeing managers hope to complete a 787 from loading into the first position to roll out in about 38 days at the new rate.  Prior to the step up in rate, the South Carolina plant was building a 787 in about 46 days and a year ago it was at 70 days. 

The plant will also start building its first 787-9 when ZB170 (LN 269) is loaded into position sometime this fall.  The aircraft will go to United Airlines sometime in March of 2015.

 

The signs of progress at Boeing South Carolina counters a false belief that the plant and its workers are not up to the challenge of building the 787 in sufficient quantities and quality that would justify the investment that was and is continuing to be made by the company.  As recently as this past week a newspaper report slammed the Boeing South Carolina workers and cast doubt on their ability to make the 787 especially in light of the bonuses that were just paid out to them for reducing the JBS (jobs behind schedule) or other wise known as travelled work. It is my understanding that the JBS number as tracked by Boeing is remaining at a flat rate.  It does appear that some people in the media are looking to highlight every mistake and incident in order to sell newspapers rather than looking at the whole story in proper context.

I attempt to put some context to the 787 production story in the form of a table that I've put together comparing number of 787s that have entered final assembly, finished final assembly and have been delivered.  The table looks at these attributes for Everett, Charleston as well as the total for both plants.

Looking at the table one can see that both plants are producing at their respective assigned rates in terms of loadings and roll outs.  We should ignore January and February as both plants were essentially ramping back up after the 2013 holidays as is  evident from the tables with the low number of loadings, rolls outs, and deliveries.  However starting in March Boeing South Carolina loaded, on average, 2.75 aircraft per month, rolled out an average of 3.25 aircraft per month and delivered an average of 2.5 aircraft per month.  This is through June 25th and I do expect at least one more delivery from North Charleston this month.

Everett has a much higher work load but during the same period the plant has loaded an average of 8 airplanes per month, rolled out an average of 8 airplanes per month and has delivered and average of 6 airplanes per month.  To look at it a different way, I take the average roll outs divided by the average deliveries in order to gauge how efficient each plant is in building and delivering 787s and this is what I have from March through June 25th:

Everett = 8/6 = 1.33
Charleston = 3.25/2.5 = 1.3

The lower the number the more efficient the plant is in building and delivering aircraft.  This shows that Charleston looks to be slightly more efficient in delivering the 787.  Please note that this is a little incomplete as we have to complete the month of June and there is at least one more 787 line move in Everett to come as well as more deliveries from each location.  Additionally, this tables ignores where the aircraft was delivered from, i.e. Charleston built aircraft for Qatar but delivered from Everett was a delivery from Charleston.
 

787 Production and Delivery Trend Table

 

 

 

Full 787 List

Current 787 Production List

Delivered 787 List

787 Monthly Delivery Tracking

787 Customer Delivery

787-9 Flight Test Hours

Current 787 Operators

Projected 2014 787 Deliveries