Boeing hopes by year-end to be producing seven 787s monthly, up from five monthly, though the company continues dealing with shortages of critical parts and with challenges related to certifying seats.
“We’re at five per month. We want to get to seven sometime this year,” Boeing chief financial officer Brian West told investors during the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call 28 January.
The US airframer has been producing its flagship widebody at a rate of five monthly for about one year.
Boeing expects to deliver 75-80 787s this year, including already produced jets now in its inventory, West adds. That would be up from 51 in 2024.
In 2019, the company was producing 14 787s monthly at two 787 production sites: its original factory in Everett and an expansion site in North Charleston, South Carolina.
The company pulled back production shortly after the Covid-19 pandemic struck. It also stopped producing 787s in Everett and centralised assembly in North Charleston. At the same time, the programme was beset by supply chain shortages and quality problems that led Boeing twice to halt production.
While Boeing now aims to increase output this year, chief executive Kelly Ortberg says seat-certification and supply chain headaches remain, specifically citing shortages of 787 heat exchanges.
“We’re working through the heat exchangers. We still need some additional improvement there,” Ortberg says during the call.
Last year, The Wall Street Journal reported Boeing was short of heat exchangers after supplier Collins Aerospace, a subsidiary of RTX, shifted production of the components from Russia to sites in Connecticut and the UK.
RTX did not respond to a request for comment.
Boeing has also been working through hold-ups caused by achieving certification of new seat designs, including seats and seat-related components on 787s destined for Lufthansa, Ortberg says.
“It’s the monuments, really, that go around the seats, and the integration of the [in-flight entertainment], and the certification associated with that,” Ortberg adds. “We’ve got a lot of completed airplanes that are held up still on seats, and we’re working through that.”
Lufthansa is equipping its incoming 787s with new seats, including business-class suites with closing doors, as part of new cabin product the airline markets as Allegris.
“Doors are a real challenge in the certification process,” says Ortberg.
