BOEING workers recently presented the company’s first 787 Dreamliner to All Nippon Airways (ANA), capping nearly a decade of development of the world’s most advanced jetliner.
Around 500 Seattle workers flanked the gleaming, carbon-composite aircraft as it was slowly towed towards its Japanese buyers at a podium outside the planemaker’s production plant.
‘Embodied in this incredible machine are 95 years of Boeing aerospace know-how,’ said Boeing chief executive Jim McNerney at the handover ceremony, acknowledging the long, rocky road the Dreamliner has travelled.
Supplier problems, late design changes and a two-month strike on the production line have put the new aircraft more than three years behind schedule.
Under Boeing’s programme accounting, which allows it to smooth out costs over many years, McNerney said the 787 was already profitable. He said cash from sales of each plane will outweigh costs per plane later this decade.
“I cannot wait to see the day when the skies of the world are filled with 787s,” said ANA chief executive Shinichiro Ito, whose airline originally expected to receive its first 787 in May 2008.
Hundreds of Boeing workers were taught on the eve of the ceremony how to bow in unison as a mark of respect for ANA’s Ito, whose company formally took control of the first of its 55 Dreamliners in September.
‘Thank you for your patience,’ one Boeing employee hollered at Ito during the ceremony. The event was a tonic for Boeing workers after the last-minute cancellation of the delivery of the first 747-8 freighter to Cargolux just the week before.