Aviation
Boeing struggles with 787 production bottlenecks
SEATTLE/NORTH CHARLESTON – A 787 that rolled out of Boeing’s factory in Everett, Washington, in January was hailed as an important milestone: the first Dreamliner built at a rate of 10 a month, the fastest for a twin-aisle jet.
But some employees who work on the aircraft are calling into question Boeing Co’s (BA.N) ability to sustain that pace. They say the two factories that assemble the 787 are struggling to cope with a ramp-up in production that started late last year, and a huge backlog of unfinished work threatens to slow output.
Boeing’s plant in North Charleston, South Carolina, cannot finish thousands of work orders and is sending pieces to the larger plant in Everett to be completed so that the company can maintain its 10-a-month rate, according to four employees who spoke on condition of anonymity. A work order can be as simple as attaching a part or as complex as installing a duct system.
A senior employee in Everett said the problem is particularly acute with the jet’s complex wiring: fuselage sections were arriving from North Charleston with large bundles of wires that were not connected properly.
The South Carolina workers have the skills to produce the plane correctly “but there are not enough of them to match the rate increase,” the senior employee said. “They can’t keep up.”
Boeing said it is aware of the bottlenecks and is working to fix the problems. The company has hired hundreds of contract workers in South Carolina, and created special teams in Everett to inspect the planes and tackle the extra tasks, known as “traveled work” because it was moved from South Carolina to Everett.
“While we try to minimize it, traveled work is something we deal with in all production programs,” said Boeing spokesman Marc Birtel. “The 787 program remains on track to meet its delivery commitments in 2014 and we are producing 787s at a rate of 10 per month as planned.”
The backlog, first reported in the Seattle Times, comes as the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration has launched an audit of Boeing’s factories this month. The FAA said the audit was regularly scheduled and declined to comment further.
Boeing said the audit was routine, performed about every two years at multiple facilities, and required for Boeing to maintain its FAA certification to produce all of its airplanes. It was not focused on the South Carolina plant, Boeing said.
MAINTAINING OUTPUT
Boeing’s ability to churn out the Dreamliner is crucial to its financial performance this year as the company is relying on commercial jetliners to offset a weak defense business. While Boeing still loses money on each 787 that it builds, it gets closer to breaking even as production increases.
Cash flow from the 787 is expected to improve next year, provided the factories stay on pace, Boeing said. The cash is needed to fund new plane development, as well as fulfill investors’ desire for share buybacks and dividends.
Boeing’s South Carolina facility makes all aft and midbody fuselage sections for the 787. Most of those sections are shipped to Everett for final assembly of the airplane, with the remainder assembled into finished planes in South Carolina.
Boeing said South Carolina aims to build three finished jets a month by mid-year, with Everett producing seven.
A Boeing employee in South Carolina said factory managers are telling workers to put down their tools and let pieces move along the assembly line even if they are not finished, so that the plant can maintain its output rate.
Boeing’s spokesman confirmed it is sometimes more efficient if unfinished work is moved elsewhere so the line can keep operating at the planned pace.
The production problems with the wiring bundles have caught the attention of the FAA, whose inspectors issued Boeing at least one “letter of investigation” on the matter months ago, according to the senior Everett employee.
The letter was part of ongoing FAA oversight and has not been linked to the current audit or to any issues on the delivered planes, including the 787 battery fires that grounded the entire fleet for more than three months last year.
According to Boeing, it has addressed the wiring issues raised by the letters. The company has teams to inspect all wiring, both from suppliers and its own facilities, as is standard practice.
The Everett worker said wiring is now no longer being fully installed in South Carolina. Instead, wiring bundles are being “pre-routed,” or put in loosely, and the actual connections are done in Everett.
The employees who discussed the 787 problems all asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to speak publicly and feared losing their jobs.
BOEING TAKING ACTION
One contractor recently hired in South Carolina said his job consists of working “shoulder to shoulder” with assembly workers to review engineering plans, inspect components before they are installed, oversee installation and review the final work to make sure it was done properly. Other contractors perform assembly or fabrication work.
He said 9,500 work orders were backlogged late last month. The Boeing staff worker in South Carolina said the backlog has since fallen to about 7,500
Boeing disputed those figures, but declined to give other numbers. It said about 7,000 contract and staff employees currently work at the South Carolina facility.
The contractors are being paid overtime on mandatory work Saturdays, the contract worker said. Sunday work is voluntary but there is pressure to volunteer, the worker said.
Boeing Chief Executive Jim McNerney told an industry conference last week that bottlenecks in the South Carolina factory appeared as Boeing added a stretched version of the 787-8, known as the 787-9, while increasing the production rate.
There was “not any sign that the 787 program is off the rails or we may not be able to hold 10 a month,” McNerney told the conference organized by Cowen & Co.
“This is what happens on all of our programs,” he said. “Sometimes when we break to a rate, it surfaces an issue that needs some extra attention. And that’s really the story here.”
– REUTERS
An Air Peace flight from Lagos to Port Harcourt has suffered a disruption, after the aircraft was affected by a bird strike on arrival at the Port Harcourt International Airport.
The airline made the disclosure on Thursday in a statement signed by its spokesperson, Osifo-Whiskey Efe.
He added that the incident necessitated safety checks on the affected aircraft and the deployment of another aircraft to convey passengers on subsequent flights.
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“We deeply empathise with passengers affected by this unforeseen incident and are working diligently to minimise disruptions,” Efe said.
The latest incident adds to the growing challenge of bird strikes faced by local airlines.
In December 2025, Air Peace disclosed that it recorded 49 bird strikes across Nigeria between January and September, stressing that even a single strike could ground an aircraft for weeks.
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the airline, Allen Onyema, had said on Arise TV that bird strikes constituted a major operational challenge, often leading to costly repairs and serious disruptions to flight schedules.
“One bird strike could cripple your aircraft for the next month. At that moment, there is no two ways about it. These bird strikes often lead to costly delays and serious disruptions in flight schedules,” he said.
He added that losses from such incidents compound other challenges facing Nigerian airlines, including heavy taxation and operational constraints.
With the firm belief that it is both sadistic and absolutely despicable, the recently announced outrageous hike in airfares to South East from Abuja to Lagos for Yuletide of 2025 by over 131 percent by Air Peace and United Nigeria Airlines, the owners have been asked to immediately have a rethink and review backward these harsh, toxic and unfriendly airfares targeting Igbo passengers exclusively.
Making the charge to the chairmen of Air Peace and United Nigeria airlines, Mr. Allen Ugochukwu and Mr. Obiora Okonkwo, the prominent civil rights advocacy group, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) expressed anger that these businesses whose proprietors are Igbo by birth are fond of making it so difficult for hundreds of thousands of Igbo passengers residing outside of the South-East to travel home on Christmas festivities.
The rights group say that for many years now, because Air Peace and United Nigeria Airlines are monopolies and then Igbos have the tradition exclusively in Nigeria of going home to South East from all over the globe during Yuletides, these few airlines have decidedly fixed toxic ticketing airfares for Igbos whereas northerners who also travel during their religious festivities of salah are not subjected to such exploitative treatments.
The HURIWA accused the two airlines of price fixing, which is anti-competition just as the Rights group said it is giving these two Igbo-hating airlines to review backward their toxic and discriminatory airfares within ten working days from today or it will petition the federal government publicly funding consumer rights body[Federal Competition and Consumer Rights Commission) in Abuja.
The HURIWA wonders if these Igbo owners of private airlines known for making their planes available to government for free during emergencies are in a conspiratorial plots with haters of Igbo land who are unhappy at the convivial and happy atmospheres in the South East during Yuletide, just as the rights group has appealed to Igbo governors to immediately intervene and urge Mr. Allen Ugochukwu and Mr Obiora Okonkwo to treat the Igbo just as they treat for instance northern Muslims who also migrate home to northern Nigeria from around the globe during their Muslim festivities because what is good for the goose, is good for the gander.
The HURIWA said that if Air Peace Airlines have gotten involved in many humanitarian efforts of airlifting Nigerians from outside of our shores for free, it becomes of the Airline ought not to maltreat their clients of Igbo extraction.
The HURIWA quoted from the business official website of Air Peace in which it described its latest humanitarian effort to be an addition to a growing list of interventions by Dr. Allen Onyema and Air Peace.
Quoting Air Peace website, HURIWA stated that Air Peace said thus: “In 2019, the airline airlifted 503 Nigerians free of charge from South Africa amidst xenophobic attacks. During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Air Peace conducted multiple repatriation flights. In 2022, the airline flew Nigerian evacuees out of war-torn Ukraine. In May 2023, Dr. Onyema again deployed Air Peace aircraft to evacuate 277 stranded Nigerians from Sudan.
As the rescued women prepare to begin a new chapter, supported by medical care and reintegration efforts, one truth stands out: Air Peace is more than just an airline — it is a bridge of hope for Nigerians in crisis, and a national symbol of empathy, courage and service,” HURIWA conclusively quoted Air Peace.
The HURIWA therefore strongly condemns the two airlines for hiking and fixing unaffordable airfares indiscriminately against Igbo passengers, even as the festive season draws near, Air Peace and United Nigeria Airlines have raised their return ticket fares to N677,000, a move that could add financial strain on travellers. The rise in airfares reflects the high demand expected during the holiday rush.
Key Points
Air Peace and United Nigeria increase return ticket fares to N677,000 for the yuletide season.
Airfares on routes to the South-East, including Enugu and Anambra, experience the highest surge.
Ibom Air offers comparatively cheaper tickets, with return fares at N381,600.
Air Peace’s one-way fare for December to January peaks at N350,500.
United Nigeria will also charge N350,500 for select routes between December 11 and the end of the year.
Northern routes, including Lagos-Kano, face smaller increases, with fares starting from N106,900.
Experts predict even higher airfares, with one-way tickets possibly reaching N500,000.
The rise in flight prices signals the start of a challenging holiday travel season, with airfares higher than usual due to increased demand. Travelers must be prepared for the surge, with some routes seeing even higher fare projections.
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The HURIWA is hereby warning the two airlines to withdraw their price fixing malpractices against Igbos or else the Rights group would seek justice and redress for the millions of Igbos who would return home for the 2025 Yuletide from the Federal Competition and Consumer Rights Commission and the National Human Rights Commission of Nigeria. The HURIWA threatened to drag the two airlines to the Nigerian President through the Honourable Minister of Aviation and Transportation.
An Abuja-Accra flight experienced technical difficulties mid-air on Friday, forcing it to return to Abuja, shortly after departure.
The Nigerian Safety Investigation Board (NSIB) made the disclosure in a statement, adding that it has launched investigation into what it described as a serious accident.
Director, Public Affairs and Family Assistance, NSIB, Bimbo Olawumi Oladeji stated that preliminary investigations revealed the aircraft experienced an engine number two indication issue.
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It was gathered that the aircraft, with registration number 5NKAL which was operating a flight from the Nnamdi Azikiwe Airport, Abuja (DNAA), to Kotoka International Airport, Accra (DGAA).
She explained that four persons were onboard when the incident occurred. The crew immediately requested for a diversion back to Abuja due to the engine indication.
Oladeji added that the crew managed to safely land the aircraft at Abuja Airport at 18:16 UTC.
There were no injuries reported, and all individuals on board are safe.
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