News
Boeing Reaffirms Latest Schedule for 787 Flight Test, Deliveries

Dec. 11, 2007, Chicago, IL – Boeing Co. says its schedule for the 787
Dreamliner remains on track and it does not currently envision
further delays in the much-ballyhooed airplane.

Officials of the aerospace company reaffirmed the latest schedule
in a conference call updating the 787 program's status, two months
after it pushed back flight testing and initial deliveries of the
aircraft by six months.

Many industry observers ultimately anticipate additional delays,
which are common with new airplanes.

Scott Carson, head of Boeing's Seattle-based commercial airplane
manufacturing division, acknowledged the company still is “ironing
out significant supply-chain wrinkles'' but said there are no
revisions to the latest schedule.

“The plan we announced in October for the 787 is unchanged: to
fly the first airplane around the end of the first quarter of 2008
and begin deliveries in late November or December timeframe, and to
deliver 109 airplanes in 2009,'' Carson said. “That is our team's
commitment, and we intend to perform to that commitment.''

The first flight test had been scheduled for early fall.

But Boeing's unprecedented plan to manufacture a jet designed
largely by other companies ran into early snags when the outsourcing
led to a variety of problems involving contractors in numerous
countries.

The delay highlights inherent problems in building new airplanes
and risks slowing the momentum Boeing built up after years of
lagging behind European rival Airbus, which itself stumbled in
introducing its superjumbo A380 two years behind schedule.

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS