News
Trump to attend B787-10 rollout
February 17th 2017
U.S. president, Donald Trump, is set to attend this Friday’s B787-10 rollout at Boeing’s Charleston plant, a source confirmed to Orient Aviation. Read More » The visit could mark the warming of Trump’s relations with Boeing, following an embarrassing December incident where Trump said costs for a new presidential B747-8 were “out of control”. The -10 is the latest and largest B787 Dreamliner variant.
Boeing started final assembly on the first -10 last December. The Boeing source said the plane maker was “very much on track” for the -10’s maiden flight at the end of March or early April at the latest.
There are 149 firm orders for the -10 from nine customers: Singapore Airlines (30), Etihad Airways (30), EVA Airways (18), Air Lease Corp. (25), GECAS (10), United Airlines (14) and All Nippon Airways (3).
Similar to Airbus’ A350-1000, Boeing’s competing -10 has attracted less attention from airline customers than expected, which signalled the market’s resistance to very large aircraft that seats more than 350 passengers.
Speaking in New York last week, Boeing CEO, Dennis Muilenburg said the OEM must sell more B787s if it wants to proceed with an output increase from twelve to 14 aircraft a month. Last week, Singapore Airlines ordered 20 B777X-9s and 19 additional B787-10s, valued at US$14 billion.
