On Friday, February 24, it has been revealed that Boeing has once again paused the deliveries of their Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft.
This article piece will dive into the details of why Boeing has once again paused their Boeing 787 Dreamliner deliveries.
Boeing Pauses 787 Deliveries…
This week, Boeing was made aware that there is an analysis error in its documentation with regard to the Boeing 787 Dreamliners’ forward pressure bulkhead. This particular piece of the 787 Dreamliners’ fuselage is manufactured by Spirit AeroSystems (“Spirit”).
Spirit has been made aware that the manufacturer has since temporarily halted deliveries of the type whilst the investigation and resolution are adopted.
As part of this pause in deliveries, Boeing has thus notified the Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) of the discovered analysis error, and as such the deliveries of the type will not be resumed until the FAA is fully satisfied that the error has been rectified.
In light of this news today, Boeing’s shares have fallen by 2.6%.
Despite the manufacturer advising that the error was only discovered within the past week, no 787 deliveries have happened over the past four weeks, with the latest delivery being a Qatar Airways Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner registered as A7-BHI on January 26.
Although this slight hiccup will hamper deliveries of the 787 Dreamliners, Boeing has stated that they are still continuing to manufacture the type and that they are not expecting this error to hinder their expected delivery count of between 70 to 80 Dreamliners this financial year.
Parties Comments…
A spokesperson for the American manufacturer has commented on the 787 delivery pause, saying that they “discovered an analysis error by our supplier related to the 787 forward pressure bulkhead. We notified the FAA and have paused 787 deliveries while we complete the required analysis and documentation.”
“Based on the information we currently have and our interactions with Boeing to date, we believe it is too early to assert there was an ‘analysis error’ by Spirit.”
“There is no immediate safety or flight concern for the in-service fleet. While near-term deliveries will be impacted, at this time we do not anticipate a change to our production and delivery outlook for the year.”
The FAA has also commented on the Dreamliners’ delivery pause, “The FAA is working with Boeing to determine any actions that might be required for recently delivered airplanes.”
Overall…
Although this is another blunder for the U.S. manufacturing giant, it’s evident that they are on top of ensuring that it is correctly resolved and that the aircraft still remains one of the safest in the skies.
Now only time will tell as to how long the deliveries will be on pause, but it’s anticipated given the error that this shouldn’t be a lengthy delay for operators that are on the backlog list waiting for their 787 deliveries.
