Boeing - Business as usual

Siste den 5. kl 10.00: Fra Seattle kommer nå meldingen om at Boeing sammen med FAA planlegger testflyging for å sjekke om det er funnet en fix på problemet med overopphetede batterier.

Boeing Shows Brave Face as 787s Sit Idle

AIN Air Transport Perspective » February 4, 2013

by Gregory Polek

NTSB investigator Joseph Panagiotou uses a stereo microscope to examine a battery cell from the JAL Boeing 787 that caught fire on January 7. (Photo: NTSB)

February 4, 2013, 1:35 PM

As U.S. National Transportation Safety Board investigators continued their painstaking examination of the lithium-ion battery that caught fire on February 7 in a Japan Airlines Boeing 787, the airplane’s manufacturer projected a business-as-usual posture during its fourth-quarter earnings call last Wednesday. Boeing chief executive Jim McNerney reiterated the company’s intention to maintain 787 production at five per month until mid-year, when plans still call for an increase to seven a month and, finally, to ten per month by the end of the year. McNerney repeatedly said he didn’t want to comment on “hypotheticals” when asked about the potential effect of a long-term grounding of the fleet.

Although he acknowledged that the rate of battery replacement in the field had proved “slightly higher” than predicted, McNerney characterized all the cases as routine. “I don’t have an exact number on how many batteries have been replaced, but what I do know is batteries are replaced on our airplanes every day…every type of battery, including these batteries,” said McNerney. “What we do know is the replacement cycle that we’ve been experiencing there has been for maintenance reasons. There hasn’t been an incident that we’re aware of where a battery has been replaced due to any kind of safety concerns.”