Japan‘s All Nippon Airways has successfully conducted its first test flight of the Boeing 787 aircraft since battery problems grounded the planes earlier this year.
Ray Conner, president of Boeing’s consumer airline division, and ANA President Shinichiro Ito were aboard the flight Sunday.
The aircraft safely completed a two-hour flight before returning to Tokyo’s Haneda Airport.
Batteries aboard two 787s failed less than two weeks apart in January, causing a fire aboard one plane and smoke in another. The root cause of those problems is still unknown.
Boeing has since developed and tested a revamped version of the battery system, with changes designed to prevent and contain a fire.
Japan‘s All Nippon Airways has successfully conducted its first test flight of the Boeing 787 aircraft since battery problems grounded the planes earlier this year.
Ray Conner, president of Boeing’s consumer airline division, and ANA President Shinichiro Ito were aboard the flight Sunday.
The aircraft safely completed a two-hour flight before returning to Tokyo’s Haneda Airport.
Batteries aboard two 787s failed less than two weeks apart in January, causing a fire aboard one plane and smoke in another. The root cause of those problems is still unknown.
Boeing has since developed and tested a revamped version of the battery system, with changes designed to prevent and contain a fire.
Boeing gave its own account of two battery incidents, which included a fire, at a detailed press briefing in Tokyo last week. The problem is that the NTSB is still investigating the incidents. Boeing is a party to the investigation, meaning it provides technical experts and, in effect, gets a seat at the table as investigators try to sort out what happened.
Boeing’s “failure to inform the NTSB of the content off the recent technical briefing in Tokyo prior to its occurrence is inconsistent with our expectations for a party,” the NTSB wrote.
The letter released late Thursday noted that on the day of the battery fire in Boston, someone from Boeing had signed a certification committing it to the NTSB‘s guidelines for participating in the investigation.
“The NTSB expects parties to an investigation to comply fully with its requirements and respect the role of the agency in performing its investigative responsibilities independently and with transparency,” the agency wrote.
The NTSB is leading the investigation into the Boston fire. It is also working with Japanese authorities investigating a smoldering battery nine days later that prompted an emergency landing in Japan.
“We have received the correspondence, and remain fully committed to support the NTSB and other regulatory authorities in their investigations into the cause of the 787 battery incidents,” Boeing said in a written statement.
The 787 has been grounded for two months.
Boeing officials said several things at the Tokyo briefing that raised eyebrows. Ray Conner, who runs the company’s commercial airplanes division, said Boeing thinks it can wrap up testing soon and get approval to fly the plane within weeks, not months, sounding like Boeing was predicting how quickly the Federal Aviation Administration would let the plane fly again. Conner and other Boeing officials later said that they know the FAA will move at its own pace.
They also said there had been no fire inside the battery itself in either of the two incidents. The only flames were seen by a Japan Airlines mechanic coming from the charger connector outside the battery. But the NTSB has not ruled out a fire inside the battery. Both batteries were blackened, and the NTSB found molten steel droplets inside the case of the battery from the Boston fire.
The root cause of the battery problems isn’t known. Boeing officials said in Tokyo that it’s common for airplane flaws to be fixed even though the root cause isn’t fully understood. Executives said the improvements to the battery and its charger should reduce the chances that the problem will happen again. Still, that’s another area the NTSB has not yet weighed in on.
Boeing Co. shares rose 53 cents to $84.86 in afternoon trading.
Boeing has received an order from Ryanair to buy 175 Next-Generation 737-800 airliners, both companies announced today.
The agreement is worth $15.6 billion at list prices and represents the largest order ever from a European airline, according to Ryanair. The airline’s fleet will grow to more than 400 planes when the last plane is delivered. About 75 of the new planes will replace existing aircraft in Ryanair’s fleet of 305 Boeing 737s. Ryanair shareholders must approve the Boeing purchase.
Ryanair says the new airplanes will allow the low-cost airline to create more than 3,000 new jobs for pilots, cabin crew, and engineers, while helping it grow at around 5% annually over the next several years. Ryanair’s goal is to have more than 100 million passengers by March 2019.
“These 175 new airplanes will enable us to lower cost and airfares even further, thereby widening Ryanair’s cost and price leadership over other airlines in Europe,” said Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary in a statement.
Ray Conner, CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, was quoted as saying, “This agreement is an amazing testament to the value that the Next-Generation 737 brings to Ryanair.”
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(Ted S. Warren/AP) Workers assemble a next-generation 737 airplane at Boeing’s assembly facility in Renton, Wash.
By SHAWN POGATCHNIK
DUBLIN — Ryanair has made the biggest-ever order of Boeing planes by a European airline, announcing Tuesday it will buy 175 aircraft in a major boost for the U.S. aerospace giant.
Neither side disclosed the purchase price for the 737-800s, but budget carrier Ryanair said it did negotiate a bulk discount off the total list price of $15.6 billion. Industry analysts said Ryanair almost certainly was paying less than half price, meaning a total bill below $8 billion, or $45 million per aircraft.
Ryanair Chief Executive Michael O’Leary and the head of Boeing’s commercial airplanes division, Ray Conner, signed the agreement Tuesday in New York.
The deal was timed to coincide with Tuesday’s visit by Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny to Washington, D.C., to meet President Obama and senior American legislators for St. Patrick’s Day-related events. Kenny plans to visit Seattle and Washington state, the base for Boeing Co. (BA) operations in the Pacific Northwest, later this week.
The move also takes the sting away from Boeing’s loss of a big order on Monday, when Indonesia’s Lion Air gave Boeing rival Airbus an order for more than 200 single-aisle planes.
Ryanair (RYAAY) already operates a fleet of 305 Boeing 737-800 Next Generation aircraft. It is Boeing’s biggest European customer for the model, which launched in 1997 and faces global competition from the Airbus A320. Both are single-aisle aircraft with cabins that typically carry 150 to 200 passengers.
Boeing’s primary 737 assembly line in Renton, Washington, faces a transition to building a newer model called the 737 MAX by 2017. Ryanair’s order represents about a half-year of full-time work for the plant.
O’Leary said about 75 of the new-order 737s would replace older airplanes, but the fleet would grow to 400 by 2019. He said Ryanair expected its passenger volume to grow around 20 percent to 100 million passengers by 2019, by which time its workforce would expand from 8,500 to around 11,500.
O’Leary has spent years playing hardball with Boeing to secure the best possible price for his next bulk order — and even sowed the seeds Tuesday for his next marathon negotiation, noting that his airline was “continuing to evaluate the benefits of Boeing’s 737 MAX aircraft.”
The purchase contract for much of Ryanair’s current Boeing fleet was agreed in the months following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, when airlines struggled to place new orders, and later Ryanair regulatory filings in Dublin confirmed that it received a 53 percent discount off Boeing’s list prices. In 2009, O’Leary noisily withdrew from talks to purchase more 737s and hinted that Ryanair might turn to Airbus.
Within the next few weeks, Boeing plans to have available for installation a comprehensive set of enhancements to the lithium-ion batteries used in its 787 commercial jetliners that will add several layers of additional safety features.
The plane maker said in a press release Thursday that the improvements, which include enhanced production and operating processes, improved battery design features, and a new battery enclosure, are in production and continue to undergo extensive certification testing. Once complete, the FAA and other international regulators will have to give their stamp of approval, but as soon as that happens, operators will be able to resume commercial flights with their 787s immediately.
The FAA has approved Boeing’s certification plan and Boeing’s president and CEO of commercial airplanes, Ray Conner, was quoted as saying, “Passengers can be assured that we have completed a thorough review of the battery system and made numerous improvements that we believe will make it a safer, more reliable battery system.”
The entire fleet of 787 Dreamliners was grounded worldwide in mid-January after apparent battery malfunction led to two incidents that involved heat damage and smoke on planes. With 50 787s already delivered and 800 more orders booked, Boeing had to move fast to resolve the problem.
Testing to gain FAA approval of the battery enhancements has already started and has so far proved fire cannot occur within the new enclosure because it eliminates oxygen, Boeing said.
“We’ve come up with a comprehensive set of solutions that result in a safer battery system,” said Boeing’s Mike Sinnett, vice president and chief project engineer of the 787 program.
The Associated Press quotes Sinnett as telling reporters at a Tokyo hotel that “We could be back up and going in weeks and not months.”
Fool contributor Rich Duprey has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
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The Federal Aviation Administration has approved Boeing‘s plan to test and certify improvements to the company’s troubled 787 Dreamliner, the company announced today.
Ray Conner, president and chief executive officer of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, said the following in the company’s statement.
Our proposal includes three layers of improvements. First, we’ve improved design features of the battery to prevent faults from occurring and to isolate any that do. Second, we’ve enhanced production, operating and testing processes. … Third, in the unlikely event of a battery failure, we’ve introduced a new enclosure system that will keep any level of battery overheating from affecting the airplane.
The certification plan is the starting point toward getting the 787 back in the air, the FAA said in its statement today, and it will require Boeing to conduct extensive testing and analysis to show compliance with safety regulations.
“This comprehensive series of tests will show us whether the proposed battery improvements will work as designed,” Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said in the statement. “We won’t allow the plane to return to service unless we’re satisfied that the new design ensures the safety of the aircraft and its passengers.”
The FAA’s airworthiness directive issued on Jan. 16, 2013, ordered airlines to temporarily cease 787 operations is still in effect.
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