An worker works on the tail of a Boeing Co. Dreamliner 787 plane on the production line at the corporate’s final assembly facility in North Charleston, South Carolina.
Travis Dove | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Boeing on Tuesday warned a few latest defect on its 787 Dreamliner planes and that it’s going to delay deliveries of the wide-body aircraft, the manufacturer’s latest production issue.
“We’re inspecting 787s in our inventory for a nonconforming condition related to a fitting on the horizontal stabilizer,” Boeing said in an announcement. “Airplanes found to have a nonconforming condition will probably be reworked prior to ticket and delivery.”
The difficulty Boeing detected pertains to tiny spacing within the horizontal stabilizer. Boeing said it’s not related to flight safety and that planes in service can proceed operating. Near-term deliveries will probably be delayed by about two weeks, Boeing said.
The issue is the most recent in a spate of producing issues on Boeing planes which have slowed if not paused deliveries of certain aircraft outright, just as airlines are clamoring for brand new planes to capitalize on the travel boom.
Boeing had paused deliveries of the planes for several weeks earlier this 12 months due to a separate problem on a fuselage component on certain 787s. The newest issue currently doesn’t affect Boeing’s full-year outlook for Dreamliner deliveries, the corporate said. Boeing has estimated that it might deliver between 70 and 80 of the planes this 12 months.
The corporate has also had to remodel a few of its bestselling 737 Max planes this 12 months due to an issues with fittings in some planes’ aft fuselages, made by Spirit Aerosystems.
Boeing shares fell sharply on the news but largely recovered, ending the day down 0.7% at $207.29.