EVERETT – The Boeing Co. is making progress toward cutting 5,000 pounds from its 787 Dreamliner jet.
“We’re about half way to our weight reduction goal,” Jim McNerney, Boeing’s chief executive, told investors at a conference in New York on Tuesday.
However, that doesn’t mean necessarily Boeing has eliminated 2,500 pounds from the plane. Instead, Boeing is about midway through exploring different strategies for reducing the weight of the new plane, said Lori Gunter, spokeswoman for the 787 program.
Last fall, Boeing officials put a figure to what McNerney has described as the Dreamliner’s “dogged” weight problem: 5,000 pounds. Engineers continue to comb through the Dreamliner’s design on a part-by-part basis, searching for ways to shave off extra pounds.
In December, Mike Bair, vice president of the 787 program, said that Boeing won’t have the entire problem solved until the seventh plane rolls off the line. Boeing still plans to drop the initial planes closer to their target weight post-assembly.
During both Boeing’s 2006 earnings call last week and in his Cowen Conference remarks yesterday, McNerney reiterated that the 787 remains on schedule for its first flight in August and first delivery in 2008.
“Despite the challenges ahead, we are pleased with our progress at this point,” McNerney said.
On Tuesday, McNerney towed the line on Boeing’s decision to launch a stretched Dreamliner.
Boeing officials have acknowledged that they anticipate offering another version of the Dreamliner – the 787-10 – which would seat 300-plus passengers. However, they have not officially added the stretched jet to their list of Dreamliner choices.
“That plane, in all likelihood, will launch … maybe in the next 12 months,” McNerney said.
Boeing currently offers three Dreamliners: 787-3, 787-8 and 787-9. Through the end of 2006, Boeing sold nearly three times as many 787-8s as it did the larger 787-9s and 787-3s. The 210- to 250-seat 787-8 brought in 332 orders out of 448.
The company probably will announce a decision on the 787-10 after rival Airbus firms up its A350 program offerings, McNerney said.
Airbus got the OK from its parent company last year to come up with an updated competitor to the Dreamliner, which it has named the A350 Extra Wide Body. Like Boeing and its 787, the European company has added composites to the A350 XWB.
Airbus’s A350-900 is scheduled to debut in 2013 – five years after Boeing’s first 787 enters service. Without the 787-10, however, the only direct competition for the Airbus plane is Boeing’s 777-200 Extended Range or Longer Range jets. It’s a point that Boeing executives have admitted has them worried.
Still, McNerney said, Boeing will wait a while to make its final 787-10 decision.
“We’ll listen to our customers,” McNerney said.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
