Boeing (BOE, Washington National) has told industry partners that it will resume B787 deliveries in the second half of 2022, more than a year after they were put on hold, three sources told Reuters.
While one of the sources said a return during the third quarter was "likely", they also underlined that previous tentative timelines had been repeatedly postponed.
The manufacturer has not publicly disclosed any predicted timelines and refused to comment pending the end of the FAA recertification process.
The US regulator told Boeing to pause deliveries of the B787 Family after quality issues were uncovered in October 2020. And while the manufacturer secured approval to restart deliveries in March 2021, it subsequently paused them again in May 2021. Since then, Boeing has been in dialogue with the FAA but has not yet delivered a single new-build aircraft. The ch-aviation fleets module shows it has a backlog of 490 firm orders, split between thirty-eight B787-8s, one B787-8(BBJ), 328 B787-9s, and 123 B787-10s.
In February 2022, American Airlines outlined wide-ranging long-haul network cuts which it explicitly attributed to a lack of new B787s that were scheduled to deliver this year.
Reuters has separately reported that the first delivery of the manufacturer's other widebody type, the B777X, is likely to be delayed to early 2025, five years behind the original schedule. Boeing has also not commented on the change. The official schedule still foresees certification in late 2023, which would pave the way for the first B777-9 delivery in early 2024. Emirates recently warned that if first deliveries slip beyond 2024, the carrier could cancel its order for ninety-nine B777-9s and sixteen B777-8s.
