A 787 customer is urging Boeing to consider introducing a second 787 production line at Boeing's Everett plant to help reduce the delays to twinjet programme.
Qatar Airways has 30 787s on order plus 35 options, which had been due for delivery in mid-2010, but will not now arrive until early 2012, says chief executive Akbar Al Baker: "Our delay is nearly 22 months...but Boeing is doing their best to improve this."
However, Al Baker says he is confident that Boeing "will shrink this delay considerably by either getting the supply chain more streamlined or putting in a second production line. They know there will be large compensation [for all airlines]."
While Al Baker says that the suggestion of another 787 line had not come from Boeing, but rather from his airline's "advisers", Flight International understands that the airframer had already been examining the option.
Boeing's current 787 Dreamliner production line
The move would allow Boeing to boost output across two lines rather than push more aircraft at a higher rate through a single line. As the production system matured further, production levels could potentially exceed Boeing's target of 10 aircraft a month by 2012 on a single line.
Although Boeing declines to comment on the second line, it reiterates that its "787 production/delivery schedule follows a more gradual ramp-up to full-rate production than was previously planned, and reaches a rate of 10 aircraft a month in 2012, rather than in 2010".
It adds that "the planning assumption we've given customers is to expect the start of their delivery streams to be adjusted, on average, by around 20 months. The specifics of these estimated delivery streams vary by customer and assume no improvement over our current plan."
Based on Boeing's latest 787 delivery forecast, Qatar Airways has implemented some adjustments to aircraft retirements to enable it to maintain capacity growth. These include extending leases on Airbus A330s, placing more narrowbody orders (it signed for up to six more A321s at the show) and delaying the disposal of its A340-600s.
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Source: Flight International
