(New York) Boeing should be able to resume delivery of its 787 long-haul aircraft next week, interrupted at the end of February to allow the analysis of a fuselage element, the American agency supervising aviation, the FAA, said on Friday. .
“Boeing has responded to FAA concerns. The FAA could resume issuing certificates of airworthiness next week,” the agency said in an email sent to AFP.
It was by examining the certification files that Boeing had discovered that one of its suppliers had made an analysis error on the pressurization bulkhead at the front of the aircraft, the American manufacturer explained at the end of February.
The group had taken the decision to suspend deliveries while redoing the analysis and the related documents, ensuring however that there is no “immediate danger” for the 787s in service and that the last problem detected “should not not increase” the modifications already planned on the devices produced.
The FAA said it was working with Boeing “to determine what actions may be necessary for recently delivered aircraft.”
This new suspension had arrived after several pitfalls.
Manufacturing defects had been discovered at the end of the summer of 2020. The device being closely examined, other problems then appeared.
Boeing had to suspend deliveries, from November 2020 to March 2021 initially, then between May 2021 and August 2022. And reduce production rates.
But after deliveries resumed last summer, Boeing was able to deliver 31 in 2022, including 22 in the fourth quarter. And in December, United Airlines announced plans to order 100 787 aircraft while optioning an additional 100.
In January, however, the manufacturer delivered only three.
It still planned, when publishing its results at the end of January, to deliver between 70 and 80 devices by the end of the year and maintained this objective on Thursday.
After the two fatal accidents of the 737 MAX and the flight ban of the aircraft for twenty months, the massive slowdown in air traffic with the pandemic, and the production problems on the 787, Boeing is counting on deliveries of this aircraft to recover financially.