NEW YORK – Deliveries of Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner, suspended since May, likely won’t resume until the end of October amid disagreements with US safety regulators, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday.
Dreamliner deliveries were suspended for much of the past year, including between last November and March, after Boeing uncovered manufacturing defects.
The company announced in July that it had spotted additional problems near the nose of the plane and was working to fix them.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Boeing held a meeting last month with Federal Aviation Administration officials, but the two sides could not agree on the method of quality-assurance for the Dreamliner.
“The FAA continues to engage with Boeing as the company works to demonstrate the reliability of its proposed method for inspecting certain undelivered 787 airplanes,” the agency said in a statement to AFP.
“The FAA will not sign off on the inspections until our safety experts are satisfied.”
Boeing vowed to continue efforts to resume deliveries.
“While this work has a near-term impact to our operations, it’s the right course of action and we will continue to take the time necessary to ensure we meet the highest standards,” the company said in a statement.
The latest problem on the dual-aisle 787 plane, marketed as the Dreamliner, comes after a string of issues on its top-selling planes, particularly the 737 MAX, two of which crashed in 2018 and 2019, claiming 346 lives and leading to a 20-month grounding of the aircraft. – AFP, September 5, 2021
