It appears that delivery Air India’s Boeing 787 Dreamliners are delayed, yet again, this time in to 2012. Air India has chosen the General Electric GEnx-1B engine to power its 787 fleet.
According to a report from Flightglobal, due to a lack of production aircraft at Boeing, the airframer is unable to complete the final certification requirements of the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in a timely manner, causing deliveries of the General Electic GEnx-1B powered Boeing 787 aircraft to be delayed, yet again, into 2012.
The other engine offered for the 787 is the Rolls Royce Trent 1000. Boeing has delivered two of the Trent 1000 powered 787s, both to launch customer All Nippon Airways
While two test aircraft with the GEnx engines have undergone rigorous testing, the FAA requires a part of the 300 hour Functionality and Reliability testing campaign, to be undertaken on regular production aircraft.
Boeing has selected aircraft number 35, which is ultimately destined for Air India, to undergo these tests. Because of this new delay, delivery of the first Boeing 787 to Air India will be pushed back to the first quarter of 2012 which is a revision from an initially “confident” delivery date in the fourth quarter of this year.
How confident this re-re-re-revised delivery date is, is anyone’s guess. Repeated calls and message to Boeing India were left unanswered. An Air India spokesperson refused comment on this delay saying he did not have immediate individual knowledge of the situation and that any communication from Boeing regarding 787 deliveries or delays would be with the engineering teams and higher management.
Air India has claims for delayed delivery of the 787s pending on Boeing for $1 billion.
Boeing is aiming to delivery between 10~15 787s in 2012, but on-going improvements to the aircraft are slowing things down. Against a delivery plan of five 787s this year, Boeing may delivery only two more.
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