On Tuesday afternoon, Boeing announced that they have delivered a 787 Dreamliner for the first time in four months, following the worldwide grounding due to faulty battery systems. 787 Line Number 83 was prepared earlier this week, and was delivered to Japan’s All Nippon Airways on Tuesday.
Paine Field in Everett has been bursting with 787s since the grounding. Assembly of the 787 continued throughout the grounding, but deliveries were not being made. This meant that Paine Field was piling up with undelivered 787s for four months, creating quite a parking problem. Already produced 787s will undergo servicing to receive the newly designed battery system before delivery.
“The health of our 787 factories in Everett and North Charleston has never been better or more efficient,” said Randy Tinseth, Vice President for Boeing Commercial Airplanes. “And despite the disruption in deliveries over the past several months, we still expect to deliver all the 787s we originally planned to by the end of the year,” added Tinseth.
Meanwhile, most airlines have dates scheduled to get their fleet of 787s back in the air. Air India announced Tuesday that they will resume 787 operations on Wednesday. Untied is scheduled to return their 787s to service on May 20th, ANA, JAL, and LAN will resume June 1st, LOT is scheduled for June 5th, Ethiopian already has the 787 on some routes, and Qatar will be ramping up operations throughout May.
787 are overflowing at Paine Field in Everett. Photo by Jason Rabinowitz
