Boeing Burning Money With Another 787 Dreamliner Delay (BA)

Boeing Co. (NYSE: BA) has announced yet another delay to the 787 Dreamliner.  The aerospace giant has announced that first flight of the 787 Dreamliner will be postponed due to a need to reinforce an area within the side-of-body section of the aircraft.  This does appear to be an event that will cause rescheduling for deliveries as well. First flight and first delivery will be rescheduled following the final determination of the required modification and testing plan.

The company noted that the need was identified during the recent regularly scheduled tests on the full-scale static test airplane.  Boeing’s  preliminary analysis indicated that the flight test could proceed this month as planned.  After further testing and consideration of possible modified flight test plans, Boeing said that the decision was made late last week that first flight should instead be postponed until productive flight testing could occur.

It will be several weeks before the new schedule is available. The 787 team will continue with other aspects of testing, including final gauntlet testing and low-speed taxiing. Work will also continue on the other five flight test aircraft and the subsequent aircraft in the production system.

It looks like this will have an impact on guidance as well.  Boeing said that its financial guidance will be updated to reflect any impact of these changes when it reports second quarter 2009 earnings report in July.

Boeing shares are down close to 5% at $44.56 in active early pre-market trading.

How many delays can one plane have?  And how large do these planes really need to get?

Jon C. Ogg
June 23, 2009