The Boeing company will bring all its 7E7 workers together in Seattle Tuesday for a meeting, the strongest suggestion yet that the company will go ahead with its proposed Dreamliner and will assemble it in Everett.
The meeting will be followed immediately by a press conference, a company spokesman said Thursday.
Fueling further speculation that Everett workers will build the new jet was news that North Carolina’s governor had shelved a proposed incentive package to lure Boeing to an airport industrial park in the eastern part of the state.
The Global TransPark site has been seen as the leading competitor to Everett for the 7E7 assembly plant and its 800 to 1,200 jobs.
Reaction in the Puget Sound region Thursday was cautious, but hopeful.
"The whole year, this is what we’ve worked on," Machinists union spokeswoman Connie Kelliher said. "We remain confident that we’re the best long-term partner for Boeing to build the 7E7."
If Boeing does announce it has picked Everett, "Puget Sound is going to have an earthquake because of all the jumping up and down," Everett city spokeswoman Kate Reardon said.
The Tuesday meeting is contingent on positive news from Boeing’s board of directors meeting on Monday, spokesman Todd Blecher said.
At the meeting, the board will debate two questions: whether to offer the fuel-efficient jet to airlines, and where to base the final assembly plant.
Depending on airline response, Boeing could take the final step and formally launch the 7E7 program in 2004.
Speculation has been growing that initial approval of the 7E7 — which would be Boeing’s first all-new plane since the 777 in 1990 — was a foregone conclusion since new CEO Harry Stonecipher strongly endorsed the program after taking over from Phil Condit on Dec. 1.
Tuesday’s meeting will come almost a year to the day after Boeing Commercial Airplanes chief Alan Mulally announced that the company had scrapped plans for the high-speed Sonic Cruiser in favor of the fuel-efficient, midsized jet that was later christened the Dreamliner.
The plane will contain more high-tech composite material than any other commercial jet — about half the total airplane. It also will take advantage of new engines and electronics to cut fuel consumption as much as 20 percent.
Boeing plans three versions of the Dreamliner — the standard model, carrying 200 passengers for more than 8,900 miles; a stretch model, carrying 250 passengers for 9,500 miles; and a short-range version, which would carry up to 300 passengers for about 4,000 miles.
The plane would be built in a vastly different manner than any of Boeing’s current models. Contractors will deliver completed sections of the plane to the final assembly factory, where Boeing workers will snap it together in as few as three days.
Those contractors could set up shop near the assembly plant. Local development officials say contractors have been scouting potential sites for satellite facilities, in the event Boeing decides to base the 7E7 plant in Everett.
Other cities in the running for the 7E7 reportedly include Kinston, N.C.; Charleston, S.C.; and Mobile, Ala.
The North Carolina Legislature met in special session Wednesday to approve tax incentive packages for pharmaceutical and tobacco companies looking to build new plants in the state.
But a proposal to provide Boeing with free land, a building and tax breaks at the proposed Kinston site was not considered. A spokeswoman for state Gov. Mike Easley told Freedom Newspapers that the drug and tobacco company proposals were the "most immediate projects on the table" for the state.
Analysts say Boeing will be almost forced to go ahead with the 7E7 program amid criticism that it has allowed its commercial jet program to fall behind rival Airbus after years of failing to launch new aircraft.
"It would be equivalent to putting a ‘Going out of business’ sign on the factory gates" if they don’t go ahead with the 7E7, said Richard Aboulafia, an aviation analyst with the consulting firm Teal Group. "That might take 15 years to happen, but Rome wasn’t burned in a day."
Aboulafia said it may take only three dozen or so orders to persuade Boeing to launch the 7E7, and Japanese airlines already are likely to order multiple planes.
Boeing could use the boost a new airplane program would provide for employees and customers after a series of ethical scandals in its defense contracting business, which have tainted its reputation, cost it more than $1 billion in lost contracts and led to Condit’s resignation.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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