787 flight delay doesn’t frighten Wall Street

Published 11:35 am Wednesday, September 5, 2007

Just hours after the Boeing Co. pushed back the first flight of its 787 jet, the company’s stock still remains on the upswing for the day.

Investors seem to view the nearly four-month delay as a minor bump in the road, banking instead on Boeing’s assurance that the 787 will be delivered on time in May.

Boeing initially had targeted first flight for late August. Today, Mike Bair, Boeing’s head of the 787 program, said the company plans to have the 787 in the air in the mid-November to mid-December timeframe.

However, Bair said, “we don’t see this translating into delays” in delivering the plane to Japan’s All Nippon Airways next year.

That’s all Wall Street needed to hear. At 11:30 a.m. PST, Boeing’s stock still was holding its own, having gained as much as $2 earlier in the day.