GEnx customers hit in 787 rescheduling

Here is a story we did for Commercial Aviation Online Tuesday, before the 787 in-flight fire.

Customers who ordered the GEnx engines are among those affected by the latest, potential Boeing 787 delivery rescheduling first revealed by CAO‘s affiliate Flightblogger, a review of Boeing’s backlog reveals.

Japan Air Lines, Korean Air Lines (KAL) and Air India each have indicated deliveries could be several months later than originally planned. JAL is looking at an additional three month delay, KAL up to 10 months and Air India up to five months. Each is a GEnx customer.

Boeing, in response to the press reports last week, said the schedules appeared to be based on the statement last August that first delivery, to All Nippon Airways (ANA), would be in mid-first quarter 2011. ANA is a Rolls-Royce customer.

In August, a Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 engine suffered an uncontained failure on a test bed in the Rolls factory in the UK. Boeing announced the new first-delivery delay following the Trent 1000 failure.

Boeing’s statement said, “The delivery date revision follows an assessment of the availability of an engine needed for the final phases of flight test this fall. While Boeing works closely with Rolls-Royce to expedite engine availability, flight testing across the test fleet continues as planned.”

Boeing added that “the cumulative impact of a series of issues, including supplier workmanship issues related to the horizontal stabilizer and instrumentation delays, could push first delivery of the 787 a few weeks into 2011. The delay in engine availability has extended that estimate to mid-first quarter 2011.”

In response to CAO‘s inquiry 8 November about the delays of GEnx customers, Boeing issued this statement: “We work with our customers on delivery schedules of individual airplanes across all models. Delivery dates can change for a variety of reasons. Certification of the 787, regardless of engine type, is based largely on the testing done on the Rolls-Royce equipped flight test airplanes.”

According to Flightblogger, delivery schedules are under further review and could be rescheduled again.

Rolls-Royce on 8 November said last week’s uncontained failure of a Trent 900 on a Qantas Airways flight is unconnected to the Trent 1000 failure.

2 Comments on “GEnx customers hit in 787 rescheduling

  1. so why are they delaying Genx deliveries if they have/had problems with RR engines? is the testing for Genx engines that far behind?

  2. Falling between Scylla and Charybdis!

    This is really looking bad. Any comment on the reasons for this?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *