Leeham News and Analysis
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Boeing starts the 787 production expansion in Charleston
By Bjorn Fehrm
August 18, 2025, © Leeham News: In our July 16 Article “ Boeing ponders 16/mo production rate for 787,” we concluded that Boeing needed to expand its present 787 plant in Charleston, South Carolina, to reach a rate of 16 Dreamliners per month before the end of the decade.
The Charleston Post and Courier reported on August 9th that Boeing has started the $1 billion expansion of the Charleston site. The article presents a Boeing rendering of the expanded site with the planned new buildings.
Figure 1 shows the rendering where we have marked the added buildings and site expansion.
Figure 1. The Boeing 787 production site south of the Charleston International Airport. Source: Boeing.
The new FAL building is essentially a copy of the present FAL, doubling the final assembly line capacity for the 787. Boeing has reached rate seven and plans to be at rate 10 per month next year.
The expansion is planned to be finished in 2028, after which Boeing will have the facilities to reach a rate of 16 787 per month.
Do global airlines need 500 widebodies delivered a year?
need to wonder if 16 787 a month (e.g. 200 a year) is what the market needs! Then add 777x to the widebody mix (e.g. 100 a year), does the global airline industry really need 300 Boeing widebodies a year? Then add 12 a month for A350 (e.g. 150 a year) and 4 a month for A330 (e.g. 50 a year) 200 Airbus widebodies a year.
Emirates and Qatar are bombarding me with special offers — would they be doing that if business were good?
Now add all the new planes they have on order…
…plus the mega-orders from Air India
…plus the new orders from Saudi Arabia
…plus the widebodies ordered by Turkish
…and that’s just in/near the Middle East.
Did somebody say “glut”…?
Are you doing their forecasting.
They could be using voodoo economic.
So far, it looks like vaporware to me.
Show us, don’t tell us, Boeing.
There are 28 prematurely-manufactured 777Xs sitting in outdoor storage, gathering dust and rodents.
The new building in Charleston will allow them to be stored indoors 😅
And the dust and rodent laden MAX China is getting delivered?
Kelly Ann was a prophet that is for sure.
from Bloomberg:
“China’s biggest airlines have started dividing up a 500-plane mega-order for Airbus SE jets from a deal that Beijing is still looking for an opportune time to announce months after it came together, people familiar with the matter said.”
+1
Only a fool would underestimate China.
Why is it always China, not individual airlines?
Sour grape derangement syndrome confirmed.
When you add 1 + 1, the right answer is 2.
All countries have their downside, the US starkly is showing that right now.
The difference in what China can do via a LCA program vs capability is like a black cat firecracker vs a Hydrogen Bomb.
What China has done on other fronts is impressive. Clearly they have mastered ship building and in particular military ships.
How good their stuff is remains a question. Hints like the India/Pakistan are that its capable but standard tactics counters the A to A side (India appears to have gone with a model of envelope for the P-15 that was flat wrong). They suffered no further losses, ergo, they countered successfully (you don’t develop that stuff out of thin air, )
Equally their military aviation programs are like the US in the 50s, a lot of new stuff, testing and research as well as production of successful designs.
Building LCA is well within their capability. There are reasons why most of it is Western. Nothing stops China from building equally good systems. But the number needed as well as proven is a different story.
The US and Europe progressed a bit at a time. The only huge leap was Jet LCA. Even that had a robust build of piston LCA and Bombers (B-47 and B-52 in the case of the US).
If you consider the early instrument days, the US, Europe and Canada (Brazil remains interesting) its 80-100 years of building on top of previous systems and success.
We have seen greedy Boeing management take a successful enterprise almost to the point of failure.
China has its issues, a state bureaucracy running a commercial endeavor is a big one. Airbus succeeded because the company was not managed from atop.
The A300 may not have been a large success, but it was an impressive one. I had the good fortune to fly an early one and yes I was impressed. It flew well, solid feel, definitely well built unlike the DC-10 (L-1011 was also a solid bird).
My disagreement was direct government funding. The US was not in that mode then (now its states being competed against states and tax breaks added from the US Governemtn for the Corporation involved.
We wound up with a worse system and trickle down benefits. Airbus does far better than that.
I have no animus against the Chinese people. Frankly I have none against any people. I do for systems (including what ours has become) and other systems. The governments of the UK, Scandinavian countries, Germany, France etc have varying degrees of admiration.
I also grew up in a self reliant area of the US. We did not stand around after the 64 quake. We got help but the residents pitched in and started self recovery (and we were fortunate that we had progressed to the point we had the equipment to do it). Sad fact in quakes like that, you need equipment. People trying to move buildings by hand breaks my heart.
The Euro Trio does not define me. You can try all you want.
The Trump admin is looking into turning grant/subsidies under previous admin’s CHIPS Act into equity of Intel. Next is the government telling big techs to buy from Intel. Yeah, that’s the path it moving down. Government corp is back in vogue, America is turning itself into semi-planned economy. Next is License Raj where the powerful & connected are going to make a killing.
Too bad Boeing shut down the 787 build in Everett. While the -10 has to come from Charleston, the -8 and -9 do not.
The comment about Vaporware is strange. Clearly Boeing is adding to Charleston. But also clearly the 787 as a desired airframe is wildly popular.
People gave me grief when I predicted 2500, now its looking to be 3500.
Develop a new engine (GTF and NEO it.). P&W has a design ready to start work on and RR is nipping on the heels with a single aisle GTF demonstrator. Obviously the NEO would fall in between RR current and that engine. I am looking forward to when they make it. Good to see RR making significant progress in their recovery. The Trent TEN is never going to do it so the GTF would be the hope for that segment.
There is a group who believes their own propaganda.
David P has a good point in is 16 a month sustainable? I really don’t think so but 10 a month is I believe. 777X more at 5 a month.
Flip is with rate 16 you can offer nearer term delivery slots which means they are loosing some sales due to availability.
Airbus at rate 16 widebody as an aspiration (a bit higher long term) makes for an interesting contrast and comparison that both companies think mfg number is there to be had.
“People gave me grief when I predicted 2500, now its looking to be 3500.”
Current order tally is 2199.
That’s 37% short of 3500.
🙈
…while Boeing loses money on every 787 delivered.
“They’ll make it up in volume” [sic].
But hasn’t most of that money already been spent in development? Or are they still selling for less than the cost of manufacturing?
BCA made an average loss of $10.17M per frame delivered in Q2…
Under unit cost accounting (i.e. when you realize the emperor wears no cloths), BCA lost $4.5 billion in the first-half of this year, according to LNA.
@TB:
Good question. That really gets into a tangled mess for an answer and the way Boeing uses accounting, they never make money.
Based on sales price and build price (labor and materials), the 787 is returning money. It gone beyond break even. But can they make up for the management fiascos, no.
Full on program accounting rolls the program into the next program and you never make a profit (or so little as to have none).
You have to look at Share Buy Back and Dividends to get the whole picture.
The 787 and MAX are a particular financial messes for different reasons. All have to do with management.
Yes
Wink, wink!
> “The U.S. planemaker’s share price jumped 5% after Ortberg said at the Bernstein Strategic Decisions conference that he hoped to have production at 47 a month by the end of 2025.”
How many deliveries are going to be deferred when the economy turns sour? Summer season is a bust! What more you need to know?
When will the 787 program recover its sunk costs?? 😁
Enjoy your martini on the deck of the Titanic, it’s a beautiful trip, so far so good!
Orders — check.
New building — check.
Construction materials — ehmmm 🤔
“Trump expands 50% steel and aluminum tariffs to include 407 additional product types”
“The new tariffs, which took effect Monday, expand the scope of the levies that President Donald Trump previously announced on the valuable commodities. The tariff list now covers products such as fire extinguishers, machinery, construction materials and specialty chemicals that either contain, or are contained in, aluminum or steel.”
““Auto parts, chemicals, plastics, furniture components—basically, if it’s shiny, metallic, or remotely related to steel or aluminum, it’s probably on the list,” Brian Baldwin, vice president of customs at Kuehne + Nagel International AG wrote on LinkedIn of the expanded list.”
““This isn’t just another tariff—it’s a strategic shift in how steel and aluminum derivatives are regulated,” he wrote.”
““By my count, the steel and aluminum tariffs now affect at least $320 billion of imports based on 2024′s general customs value of imports,” Jason Miller, a professor of supply chain management at Michigan State University, wrote on LinkedIn. That is a substantial increase from his prior estimate of roughly $190 billion.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/19/trump-trade-steel-aluminum-tariffs-.html
Boeing is smart moving all the 787 to Charleston. SC business climate so much more favorable than Washington state, which just raised massive taxes on all businesses. Another plus is all non union.
Cost of living in SC is so much favorable for workers.
The caveat to Boeing though on reaching 16/ month is all contingent on FAA approval.
Another caveat: hurricanes.
BA has had to suspend operations in Charleston on many occasions as a result of hurricanes.
No direct hits yet — but still disruption.
Lets see, St Helens (and associated mountains) not to mention the Cascadia 9.0 class fault (last big one showed up in Japan and was recorded)
Nisqually earthquake and that was a fairly low (by US standards of build) 7.1.
Kansas is probably the safetest though its down wind of Yellowstone.
Let’s come a seasonal weather system (hurricanes) with rather unpredictable non-seasonal earthquakes.
Okay bud
Yes — imagine building a huge, thin-skinned building in an area that regularly gets pummeled by hurricanes.
Even worse — that building is BA’s sole production site for a particular aircraft model.
“From 1851 to 2024, 45 tropical cyclones
have made landfall on the South Carolina coast. Of these that have hit the state’s coast, only four made landfall as major (Category 3+) hurricanes. They are the 1893 Great Charleston Hurricane, Hurricane Hazel of 1954, Hurricane Gracie of 1959, and Hurricane Hugo of 1989.”
https://www.dnr.sc.gov/climate/sco/hurricanes/pdfs/SCHurricanesExecutiveSummary.pdf
WA has one of the the highest personal income per capita IIRC. But US corps would rather chase the lowest cost bidders.
Onshoring and reshoring are marketing schemes for politicians.
The rust belt is caused by manufacturers moving to lower cost states.
Over time, they will move from low-cost states, back to low-cost countries (LCC). Didn’t the “great” Jack Welsh say: Factories should be put on barges and towed to the LCCs wherever they may be at the time… And doesn’t that “man’s” disciples still permeate (or infect) the aerospace industry?
Despite what populist talk may travel over the airwaves, if there is no set policy other than the threat of tariffs, manufacturing will not storm back to the lower 48 states.
Yea the OA is dilusional, we can only hope we survive it.
“The rust belt is caused by manufacturers moving to lower cost states.”
No, sourcing steel over seas.
That is an era where tariffs would be effective.
I was building houses in that era. In the US we used (far less now with nail guns) a nail called a Sinker. Coated to drive easy, striped off the coating as it went in and good hold though not as good as zink coated)
South Korea subsidized their steel industry and we got South Korean made sinkers. They were junk, way too soft, bent. US Steel sinkers were solid. They cost the same to a house builder.
That is when Tariffs would have worked.
Another comment on a subject of which you do not know what you are posting about.
regarding the US steel industry Its been a lack of investment in new infrastructure and technologies for the past 50 plus years by the US steel companies that caused their demise. Why should the US consumer/companies subsidize the US steel industry with paying tariffs on imported steel?
I posted previously, can’t find it rn.
Do you have data to support what you said?
First they dispersed out of Detroit to across Michigan and the mid West, then they rushed to the South, enticed by billions of incentives.
> By 1950, Detroit had become the fifth largest city in the United States, home to nearly two million people. But in the midst of that prosperity, the auto industry restructured its operations. Between 1948 and 1967—when the auto industry was at its economic peak—Detroit lost more than 130,000 manufacturing jobs… building new plants in suburban “greenfields” and in the small towns of the upper Midwest and, increasingly, the Sunbelt.”
“The massive Dodge Main plant, which employed more than 30,000 workers at its peak, winnowed its workforce to a few thousand before closing in 1980. Ford’s River Rouge plant hemorrhaged jobs beginning in the 1950s—and although it continues operations today, it has but a few thousand workers, a shadow of its World War II–era might.”
List me one Ford plant in the South.
The Ops went overseas. They sourced a lot of product from others in Asia.
The big auto plants in the South in fact are European or Asian mfgs looking to onshore as a hedge against (tarrifs)
The heart of the economy was not the autos, it was the things they put into the autos. Those items did not move to the South, they went overseas.
Some US engine and equipment mfgs (Cat, Cummins, IH) moved more recent built factories to the South.
Bearings? Try to find a US made bearing now. Actually Fafnir was one of the last (bought out by Timken and now sources in all sorts of odd places).
Last 10 years of working, I went with SKF after Timken ruined Fafnir. Lot of interesting places but SKF maintained its quality no matter where it was made.
You might stick to your neck of the woods.
who needs factory workers?
China’s Dark Factories: So Automated, They Don’t Need Lights
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCBdcNA_FsI
Ford has two plants in what’s considered the “Southeastern region” of the USA, one opened in 1955 and the other in 1969.
GM opened Arlington plant in 1954, Bowling Green in 1981, Fairfax in 1987, Fairmont in 1963, Louisiana in 1981 and Tennessee in 1986.
Are you satisfied now?
What does Ford source from others in Asia? Why others have to buy aircraft from the pacific northwest of America? Fine, don’t buy from others and others won’t buy from you. They can sell to other regions of the world and buy from them. Take a look at the impact of Brexit to the UK’s economy. Did they teach economics in high school??
How successful is Trump I’s restoration of coal?
Steel tariffs by Trump I caused 75k job losses and only 1,000 jobs saved in steel.
> 26,000 U.S. manufacturing jobs lost in May and June
The trade war didn’t bring back jobs, it destroyed jobs.
Expensive, major components aren’t moving overseas.
Do you believe jobs of making capacitors in New England is still viable in 2025?
Take a look at North Adams and its transformation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASPLC-E1rI4
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts_Museum_of_Contemporary_Art
https://library.mcla.edu/localhistory/spraguelog
But Mass. is still one of the states with highest personal income.
Steve Jobs once was a strong proponent of Made in America, but reality is:
“Apple Computers Used to be Built in the U.S. It was a Mess”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/15/business/apple-california-manufacturing-history.html
> In 1998, Apple was teetering on the brink of bankruptcy.
You could have a few thousand workers assembling Apple computers and all these jobs would be gone once Apple gone out of business OR tens of thousands high-paying jobs in America but manufacturing is outsourced to low cost countries. I guess you’d stick with tge first option.
> The steel industry in the U.S. prospered during and after World War II, while the steel industries in Germany and Japan were in ruins, devastated by allied bombardments.
> U.S. global leadership in steel manufacturing lasted about two decades, during which U.S. steel industry operated with little foreign competition. Eventually, however, foreign firms were rebuilt with modern techniques, including continuous casting, while profitable U.S. companies resisted modernization. Bethlehem Steel experimented with continuous casting but never fully adopted the practice.
there is good side for not producing steel Bethlehem Steel in Buffalo, NY along with others closed down decades ago and Lake Erie fishing is now outstanding (e.g. bass, walleye) with no more pollution from the steel industry.
Google AI
“Lake Erie is widely considered one of the best, if not the best, smallmouth bass fisheries in the world. The lake’s unique characteristics, including its size, depth, and structure, create an ideal habitat for smallmouth bass. “
> you’re a Korean steelworker in the 1980s and you get one day off a month
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Gy0VHseXIAAq8ow?format=jpg&name=large
@Airdoc:
I worked for a living. I paid taxes on all I earned.
Why should Corporations be allowed to not pay taxes?
Where did the Boeing profits go? Share buy back (and dividends). But not a dime to pay for schools, roads, airports (which in Boeing case is their reason to exist).
What has Charleston cost Boeing? They never set out to build a plant there, its been knee jerk all along.
What has the Boeing facility cost the State?
Cost of living is because the workers support is not there. South Carolina is a backwater (well a swamp). They don’t call it the Low Country for no reason.
@TW
It’s called politics. The sooner you accept that the sooner you’ll feel better … really.
Airbus is in Mobile, AL (backwater in your arrogance) and are very successful there. The state did the same deal as SC did for Boeing.
If you lived in WA state you’d see why Boeing is moving south. Highest gas tax in the nation yet the roads, that Boeing needs to move material from Fredrickson and Auburn to Renton and Everett, are some of the worst for safety and traffic. Yes they most the gas tax just all of us.
There is much much more here that stifles business development.
As it relates to widebody glut…there are a lot of widebodies that are getting very old. Any surge in deliveries will be matched with a commiserate retirement of old A330 / B777C / A380.
That will free up some feedstock for freighter retrofits.
How’s the demand for freight retrofits doing? I recall that it dipped a bit recently, but perhaps the forecasts for 5-10 years out are good for air freight.
Its down. They went nuts during COVID and too many jumped into the game. Usual stupidity, multi year projects that when they start producing are into the bottom of the cycle.
Ironically the retrofit market is constrained by a lack of feedstock. That is a result of airlines flying their aircraft deeper into old age due to lack of new aircraft
Also consider the B767F just went away as it relates to new planes and the 777F is several years out
Agreed, its also complex.
There never was enough feedstock for 777 BCF conversions . You can pick off one here or there, but for a Boeing program they needed numbers and the only one that was a might be was Singapore and they pulled (20 as I recall) 777-200 into they low cost arm.
One amendment, the 777-8F is still several years out.
A problem with older aircraft is you have to get the F conversion life out of them. I saw an odd flip with FedEx where they bought two parked MD-11s, converted them and stored two existing converted aircraft. The stored ones had a lot more life left in them. That takes a serious data base to make that determination.
Boeing wants to standardize builds so models from a single source need to be large enough numbers to do so (those are all custom built – you need to know what you will run into and then have a template for it. All that costs time which is then money.
Keeping in mind to, there is nothing out there that replaces a 767-200 or 300. That was the area for the 787-3 that Boeing dropped.
Maybe with new engines it comes back into play!
There was never enough feedstock for the 777 BCF conversions??? A 50% tariff will help alleviate that problem.
@Casey:
Don’t forget 767s!
A lot of older aircraft are still being flown as they can not get near term deliveries.
“Large Stealth Flying Wing Aircraft Photographed Over China”
“…Based on the satellite image, the aircraft has a span of about 170 feet, which compares to 172 feet for the B-2 Spirit.”
“China is currently working on a range of flying-wing type drone designs of various sizes, including large HALE drones. At least until now, the WZ-X was the largest Chinese design we have seen in this category.
“Judging by what we can see of it, the aircraft appears likely to be a very large, high-altitude, long-endurance (HALE) stealth drone. This may well put it in a category similar to the supposed U.S. RQ-180. The long wing would also seem to point to a design that’s been optimized for endurance at altitude.”
https://www.twz.com/air/large-stealth-flying-wing-aircraft-photographed-over-china
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GyxU9EGbYAAplur?format=jpg&name=medium
Oopsie!
More photos of the fire on US navy ship near Okinawa
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GyyvcNEboAAsMbr?format=jpg&name=900×900
Interesting report on Bloomberg today — essentially the same wording as yesterday’s report, but now with “Airbus” replaced by “Boeing”.
“Boeing in talks to sell up to 500 jets to China, Bloomberg News reports”
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/boeing-talks-sell-500-jets-111105949.html
***
Could be true, but plenty of doubts.
China has the upper hand in the current trade war: it has a near-monopoly on rare earths, it doesn’t need US oil, LNG or soy, it’s less interested in US semiconductors than Nvidia seems to think, it’s pivoting trade to ASEAN from the US, and it continues to reduce its use of the USD, SWIFT and Treasuries.
So, why bother putting in a big order with the US for products that it can source elsewhere?
“Interesting report on Bloomberg today — essentially the same wording as yesterday’s report, but now with “Airbus” replaced by “Boeing”.”
Boeing PR dept probably “complained” to Bloomberg and threaten to cut them off. Maybe South Park can make this part of their next episode lol
Indeed.
There are probably multiple Trump puppets at US media outlets.
He installed a puppet at the BLS last week, raising market fears of manipulated economic data from now on.
And he has several puppets lined up for the FOMC (Federal Reserve), raising fears about continued Fed independence.
Not to mention the witch hunt at US universities and law firms.
BA stock has barely moved in reaction to the report (currently +0.3%), so the market doesn’t seem to be buying the story.
China seems to be using Boeing orders as political negotiating material.
They understand Boeings current position, and that Trumps needs successes. They can order 500 Boeings & want something significant back.
Bend or break, they can/will order (better..) Airbus alternatives to be build / completed in China anyway.
This, plus strategic ambiguity.
China plays the long game..
Recent events have shown that ordering any US product now brings an attendant future risk of having product support terminated at a whim — ask the ICC (Azure), Poland (Starlink), Russia and Iran about that.
Of particular note: the recent export stop on LEAP-1Cs for the C919.
No country is going to willingly (continue to) expose itself to such risk.
What Trump can offer in exchange?
U.S. And EU Reveal Trade Deal Details—Here’s How Tariffs Will Affect Cars, Drugs And Other Goods
“European imports will now face a blanket 15% tariff, while “Most Favored Nation” rates of below 15% will be imposed on aircraft and aircraft parts, generic pharmaceuticals, including their ingredients and “chemical precursors,” and unavailable natural resources”
To those who have injected Trump politics into this post: Not relevant.
However, in the Boeing-China story posted after this one, politics are relevant. Have at it there.
Hamilton
Boeing wins Brazil court case, can continue hiring engineers
> Industry groups claim Boeing recruited nearly 500 engineers from Brazilian companies even before opening its engineering and technology center in São José dos Campos in October 2023 — about half reportedly from Embraer