Anyone Really Surprised At This Point?

To anyone at Boeing who may have snickered when rival Airbus experienced a number of delays in bringing its high-profile A380 superjumbo to market... one imagines if you didn't believe in karma then, you do now.

The Wall Street Journal reports the American planemaker is poised to announce yet another delay to its troubled 787 Dreamliner program, due to the recent strike by workers represented by the International Association of Machinists.

Citing unnamed sources, the WSJ says Boeing will announce later this month first deliveries of the composite-bodied jet will be pushed to summer of 2010, with the possibility the aircraft's first flight may not happen until late 2009. "There is no question" the 787 will be delayed further, one source told the WSJ. "The real issue right now is that Boeing wants to make sure it has a believable date before going back to the customers with more bad news."

Boeing's latest official statement about the Dreamliner called for deliveries to start in the third quarter of 2009. If the latest report is true -- and there's nothing to suggest it isn't -- the latest delay would mean the first 787 will delivered to launch customer All Nippon Airlines at least two years later than Boeing had originally hoped.

Touted by Boeing as a revolutionary, highly-efficient airliner for a environmentally-conscious world, for the moment the Dreamliner has instead become the company's largest embarrassment since the Darleen Druyun fiasco. Boeing announced its first six-month delay to the 787 program in October 2007, citing parts shortages and issues with integrating systems on the first airliner... which was revealed to have been little more than a hastily-assembled shell at a lavish July 8, 2007 rollout event.

Boeing further pushed off its development schedule in January 2008... and then again in April. Just as it appeared Boeing had ironed out its supplier woes and technical issues -- if only with the first few planes, at least -- the 57-day IAM strike came along.

The planemaker has since been confounded by yet another technical problem, as well: improperly installed fasteners throughout the first 12 planes, which were later found to be due to confusing installation specs, written by Boeing's own engineers.

Boeing declined to comment on the Journal's report, with a spokesman saying only the planemaker is "currently reviewing the schedule" and would make an announcement shortly.

In the meantime, 787 customers are growing increasingly weary with the long string of unpleasant surprises coming from Boeing.

Calling the 787 "the world's rarest airplane," Virgin Atlantic Airways CEO Steve Ridgeway told the paper "we're pretty fed up" with the delays. "We've got no clarity from Boeing.... we don't know how long the delay is now."

Ridgeway also lamented how Boeing's focus to date has been on getting the first planes delivered, "but nobody's talking about production run-rates... Just getting the first ones delivered to a handful of airlines isn't the end of the story," he said.

While there's little doubt about how delays to the 787 have harmed Boeing in the short-term, it's hard to gauge how Boeing's ongoing problems with the Dreamliner will ultimately hurt the planemaker's overall reputation. Prior to the 787, Boeing for the most part had enjoyed a streak of on-time introductions for its new airliners, most notably with the June 1995 introduction of its 777.

FMI: www.boeing.com