SEATTLE- Boeing has completed rework on the final 787 Dreamliner that required repairs for small fuselage gaps, Boeing Commercial Airplanes CEO Stephanie Pope announced this week.
Mechanics in Everett finished the last of 122 Dreamliners that had been stored long-term while awaiting these repairs.
Boeing Ends 787 Repair Factory
The completion ends a costly five-year process that diverted hundreds of mechanics from regular production tasks to fix paper-thin gaps at fuselage joins. While these gaps posed no risk to structural integrity, they failed to meet manufacturing specifications, preventing deliveries to airline customers, Seattle Times reported.
The labor-intensive repairs required careful disassembly and reassembly of each aircraft. Boeing still has approximately 55 737 MAX jets in storage undergoing similar rework as of late January.
Boeing has described these repair operations as “shadow factories” because they pull workers away from main assembly plants. Chief Financial Officer Brian West stated last month that completing both the 787 and MAX rework projects this year would immediately improve the company’s profit margins.
Mechanics Transition to 777X
Boeing Commercial Airplanes CEO Stephanie Pope announced Friday on LinkedIn that mechanics who completed the 787 Dreamliner rework will transition to new assignments, with many supporting the 777/777X program. “This is what we mean when we said we would shut down the ‘shadow factories’ and turn our full attention to building all-new airplanes,” Pope stated.
Despite this milestone, Boeing continues to face production challenges elsewhere. A growing inventory of newly built 787s sits unfinished in North Charleston, South Carolina due to parts shortages.
The primary delays stem from uncertified business class seats and heat exchangers for the environmental control system, the latter affected by supply disruptions from the Ukraine war.
Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg recently acknowledged “good progress” on securing alternative heat exchanger supplies at an industrial conference this month, but noted that “seats continue to be a problem.”
The Everett mechanics freed from 787 rework may soon tackle approximately 30 previously built 777X aircraft that have been parked at Paine Field for extended periods, some for as long as six years. These aircraft were manufactured ahead of flight testing completion, which has taken longer than anticipated and remains ongoing.
The parked 777X jets cannot enter service until the new plane receives certification. At that point, all stored aircraft will require removal from storage, relubrication, and system updates before delivery.
Abnormal Costs
Boeing has completed rework on the final 787 Dreamliner with fuselage-gap issues, marking the end of a costly problem that began in 2020. The last repaired aircraft was a 787-10 model built in South Carolina in December 2020, which previously served as a test aircraft in Boeing’s ecoDemonstrator Explorer program conducting fuel efficiency trials on flights to Tokyo, Singapore, and Bangkok.
The fuselage-gap issue initially halted 787 deliveries in fall 2020, with only brief resumptions until August 2022. Between November 2020 and August 2022, Boeing delivered just 14 Dreamliners. The company estimated the total “abnormal costs” of this manufacturing defect at approximately $6.3 billion by 2023.
Boeing had reduced the backlog to 25 aircraft requiring fuselage-gap repairs by the end of last year before completing the final jet this week. The last repaired 787-10 will now be repainted for delivery to TAAG Angola Airlines, according to aircraft data sites.
Despite the completed repairs, deliveries of these aircraft will proceed gradually. Many jets will now go to different airlines than originally intended, requiring repainting and interior modifications that may face additional delays due to ongoing parts shortages.
Boeing Commercial Airplanes CEO Stephanie Pope stated Friday on LinkedIn that the company will work with airlines to deliver the remaining reworked Dreamliners “over the course of this year and next.”
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