The Boeing Co. has chosen Everett as the home for the 7E7 Dreamliner, a move that should keep the city as a world center for jet building for decades to come.
The decisions, announced by Boeing CEO Harry Stonecipher in the Seattle Convention Center this afternoon to a crowd of cheering workers, is significant both economically and emotionally.
For Everett, the new jet means 800 to 1,200 Boeing jobs, with the potential of a similar amount of new jobs at companies supplying parts for the Dreamliner.
That’s far fewer jobs than in any previous Boeing program, but advocates say that the company’s decision to build the Dreamliner here means Everett will remain a world center for aerospace manufacturing for decades to come.
But it’s also an emotional boost for a region that has lost thousands of Boeing jobs in recent years, has lost the company headquarters to Chicago and faced losing assembly of the 7E7 — a plane that will help define the future of the company.
“The 7E7 is a real game-changer,” Stonecipher said in his announcement.
The 7E7 is the first new jet program since the Everett-built 777 was launched in the early ’90s, and it would come after the company proposed, but then scrapped, two other jet designs. Executives see the 7E7 as a way to regain moment lost to Airbus by recapturing the growing market for midsize jets.
The decision to build the jet means Boeing will start seeking buyers. Once those are in place, a formal decision to launch the 7E7 program would follow within six to nine months. Japanese airlines are reported to be among those interested. So is Emirates, based in the Middle Eastern country of Dubai.
If all goes as planned, production of the first would begin in 2006. The first flight would occur in 2007, and Boeing would deliver its first plane to its launch customer in 2008.
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