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Add this to the list of Boeing Co. 's growing problems: The once-popular 787-8 the planemaker builds in North Charleston has become a sales dud. Kelly Ortberg visited a Boeing factory near Seattle shortly after joining the company as CEO in early August.
The original and smallest member of the Dreamliner family has notched just seven orders this decade . That compares to 421 for the mid-sized and most popular 787-9 model and 97 for the stretched 787-10 from 2020 to 2024. The backlog of unfilled 787-8 orders stands at just 34, compared to 595 for the 787-9 and 152 for the 787-10.
Newly hired CEO Kelly Ortberg last week promised Boeing will evaluate every program in the aerospace giant's commercial plane, defense and space units as well as its portfolio of businesses to find a way to stem financial losses that totaled more than $6 billion last quarter alone. Boeing SC holding 'education sessions' on unions as organized labor flexes its muscles The "Dash 8" Dreamliner might seem a likely candidate for Ortberg's cost-cutting crusade, but analysts say the jet is likely to survive for a few key reasons. Most importantly, Boeing plans to stop building its wide-body 767 freighter in three years.
The 787-8 is viewed as a good replacement candidate. "I don’t know that they are ready to pull the plug on the 787-8," said Scott Hamilton , founder and managing director of aviation consultant Leeham Co. "With termination of the 767F in 2027, the 787-8 might become their new freighter in that space, even if it is a little big dimensionally and volumetrically.
" Boeing acquires key supplier for its North Charleston-based 787 Dreamliner program Richard Aboulafia , managing director of AeroDynamic Advisory , also thinks the conversion from passenger jet to cargo carrier is a possibility. But even if that isn't the 787-8's fate, Aboulafia doesn't think Boeing will sound an official death knell for the plane. "Do aircraft variants usually get phased out? No.
Usually, they just stop building them or offering them," he said. "It's sort of a soft death." Four of the 787-8 orders this decade were for unidentified customers.
Two more are set to go to Air New Guinea , which recently secured funding for the aircraft through the Asian Development Bank . Today's Top Headlines Story continues below Disabled vet with nearly half-million-dollar salary told VA he was jobless. Now he has to repay $300K.
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That was the first delivery of a 787-8 in nine months. Not all of the news has been bad. Emirates last year converted an order for 30 787-9s to a combination of 20 787-8s and 15 787-10s at the Dubai Air Show , indicating there's still some — but not a whole lot — of demand left, Aboulafia said.
Boeing's 787 Dreamliner plant in SC a focus of Senate hearing on safety lapses The 787-8 ushered in the Dreamliner era with its program launch in 2004 and initial delivery seven years later. Boeing's 787-8 passenger jet ushered in the Dreamliner era and was a big seller in the years after it was introduced. But demand for the wide-body plane has diminished this decade.
The plane's construction with lightweight composite materials made it much more fuel-efficient than wide-bodies of the past. That and its longer range let airlines bring direct service between smaller markets that used to rely on stopovers. As the only Dreamliner variant available early on, 787-8 racked up 551 orders between 2005 and 2010.
More recently, though, Boeing rival Airbus has introduced lighter, less expensive single-aisle jets that can compete with the 787-8's range and fuel efficiency without sacrificing much in passenger capacity. What's more, the Dash 8 has faced competition from its newer sister model — the larger and more advanced 787-9, which also features lower operating costs, more seats, greater flexibility and a longer range. So, a plane that filled an important niche last decade has arguably seen its better days.
"I think that we're better off being doing less and doing it better than doing more and not doing it well," Ortberg told analysts last week during Boeing's third-quarter conference call. "I don't have a specific list in my hand today, and I'd ask everybody, don't get ahead of me on this. I don't have a specific list of things that we're going to keep and we're not going to.
That's for us to evaluate, and the process is underway to start that." Here's a look at Scout's newly revealed EVs to be built in SC A few hours after that statement, the International Association of Machinists union rejected Boeing's latest contract offer, leaving 33,000 workers on a strike that by some estimates is costing the planemaker $100 million a day. And that's a final reason why the 787-8 is likely to survive despite its slow sales.
Cutting that variant won't really save that much money compared to the billions Boeing is currently bleeding. Added to the quality problems and airlines starting to lose patience, Boeing and Ortberg have much bigger issues to worry about. "There might be some kind of (cost) benefit that I don't know about that would occur from a hard death (of the 787-8)," Aboulafia said.
"But it's not like you're closing a production line.".
