Boeing officials remain tight-lipped on 7E7 meeting and plans

CHICAGO — Twice in the past three years, the Boeing Co. has halted new airplane programs before takeoff: the super-sized 747X and the fleet Sonic Cruiser.

This time, the fuel-efficient 7E7 Dreamliner appears to have a strong chance of getting off the ground. And newspaper reports have said Everett has been recommended by an executive team as the 7E7 assembly site.

Boeing’s board of directors is widely expected to sign off today at the end of a two-day meeting in Chicago on offering the 7E7 for sale to airlines — a step that could lead to a formal launch of the program in mid-2004, assuming there is sufficient demand from customers.

Boeing spokesmen have said that if there is positive news from today’s board meeting, company executives would first announce the decision to employees on Tuesday in Seattle.

Boeing officials remained tight-lipped about the 7E7 approval process and said they would not even confirm when the board meeting had begun Sunday as planned.

But industry observers have said they would be shocked if Boeing didn’t go ahead with the program, citing not only their lack of a new airplane program for the past decade but the dramatic gains that rival Airbus has made in taking over the market-share lead in commercial airplanes this year.

"The only doubt is what kind of launch we’re talking about here," aviation analyst Richard Aboulafia of the Teal Group said. "Boeing has always done a real launch. But McDonnell Douglas (which it acquired in 1997) did a bunch of halfhearted, highly conditional launches in the ’90s where things didn’t go anywhere."

Boeing is led for the first time by a McDonnell Douglas veteran, Harry Stonecipher, who returned from retirement this month to take the CEO’s post after a rash of ethics scandals within the company’s defense business prompted Phil Condit’s resignation.

Stonecipher voiced his strong support for the 7E7 program on the day he took over. He is expected to try to assuage any concerns among the other 10 board members about whether Everett is the best site, given the potential for labor problems which could be greater than elsewhere.

Boeing expects to plan three versions of the 7E7. The standard model would carry 200 passengers for more than 8,900 miles; a stretch model would have a capacity for 250 passengers and go 9,500 miles, and a short-range version would have room for 300 passengers and fly 4,000 miles.

About 800 to 1,200 jobs are expected to be created for assembly.

Today: Board members are expected to make a decision in Chicago on whether to offer the jet to prospective customers and, most likely, where it will be assembled.

Tuesday: If a decision is reached, Boeing CEO Harry Stonecipher will address an assembly of 7E7 team members in Seattle, then preside over a press conference to announce the decision.