Tuesday, October 3, 2017

Boeing Rolls Out First Production 787-10 for Singapore Airlines

ZC003 for Singapore Airlines.  Boeing Image

ZC003 Rolling out of the Charleston Final assembly Line. Boeing Image
Boeing has rolled out the 1st production 787-10 destined for Singapore Airlines sometime in the second Quarter of 2018.

The aircraft, ZC003 (LN 622, 9V-SCB) will undergo painting followed by extensive ground testing for the remainder of the year. According to sources it will then be placed into storage until March where it will then undergo flight tests starting approximately in mid March.  It will continue testing activities into April and there appears to be a tentative delivery time frame of mid to late April 2018.

Oddly this aircraft may not be the first 787-10 delivered to Singapore but the second one.  ZC004 (LN 656) is tentatively scheduled to be delivered in March but that may change.  This aircraft is not due to start final assembly until late November/early December.  I'm pretty certain ZC003 will join the flight test program late in the 1st quarter of 2018 thus this is the reason why it would be delivered after ZC004.

Here's Boeing's press release on the roll out of ZC003, the only thing of note is that Boeing states that the 19 additional 787-10 that has been ordered by Singapore is still a letter of intent though the final order was signed months ago and is now a done deal and even listed on Boeing's Order and Delivery web site (listed as unidentified).  Why they're doing that I do not know.

Boeing Rolls Out Singapore Airlines' First 787-10 Dreamliner


NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C.Oct. 3, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Boeing [NYSE: BA] has rolled out the first 787-10 Dreamliner built for Singapore Airlines at its Final Assembly facility in North Charleston, South Carolina. 
The airplane will now undergo the painting of the airline's livery and begin its system checks, fueling, and engine runs. Singapore Airlines is due to take delivery of its first 787-10 in the first half of 2018 and will be operated on the airline's medium-haul routes. 
Singapore Airlines is the launch customer of the 787-10 and currently has 30 airplanes on firm order. The airline also signed a letter of intent in February to purchase 19 additional 787-10s. 
 "Boeing is excited to have finished final assembly of the first 787-10 Dreamliner for Singapore Airlines," said Dinesh Keskar, senior vice president, Asia Pacific & India Sales, Boeing Commercial Airplanes. "With its unprecedented efficiency, greater capacity and the Dreamliner's known preferred passenger experience, the 787-10 will be an important part of the airline's future fleet." 
As an 18-foot (5.5-m) stretch of the 787-9, the 787-10 will deliver the 787 family's preferred passenger experience and long range with 25 percent better fuel per seat and emissions than the airplanes it will replace. 
The 787 Dreamliner family offers a modern, optimized and efficient airplane family in every market segment. Since entering service in 2011, the 787 family has flown more than 190 million people on more than 560 unique routes around the world, saving an estimated 18 billion pounds of fuel.

12 comments:

Greg.S. said...

Very frustrating, too many undisclosed orders listed..
Where's China Eastern,China southern 9 order,donghai,juneyao, ..on and on...

Uresh said...

All those orders are listed in my spreadsheets

Pete Templin said...

Funny how LN528 and LN565 were built for Singapore Airlines, but LN622 gets announced as the first 787-10 built for Singapore Airlines. Does that make LN528/548/565 "pre-production" test aircraft, LN622 a production test aircraft, and LN656 a production non-test aircraft? :)

Uresh said...

528/548/565 are test airplanes all subsequent -10s are production standard airplanes. 622 is a production airplane which will be used for some functionality and reliability testing early next year.

Vab Andleigh said...

Uresh, do you know whether Boeing's existing 747 dreamlifter fleet is adequate to support the planned production rate increase to 14/month?

Uresh said...

Should be fine but they can always sleet one more from a boneyard for cheap and convert it.

Unknown said...

How does Boeing determine the # of Pre-Delivery test flights? Charleston's number of flights has usually been higher (4-6 range) than Everett's (1-3). I see that Air New Zealand has their 787-9 at Charleston ready after only 2 test flights. Does this suggest that the build process has matured to the level of Everett's or is something else at play?

Unknown said...

Hi Uresh, hope you're having a great weekend. Can you verify if Avianca changed his last 3 B788 to the B789? I read somewhere about it but im not sure if its true. It also says there's an order of 5 B789 of an undisclosed buyer and it might be AV. thanks!

jan said...

Uresh, line 622 787-10 Spore,"first flight date"?? Thanks.
Best,
jan bar

Uresh said...

Not until March 2018

Josh said...

Previously planes had to be flown to paint which would add 2 extra flights. Now with the paint facility open the number of flights have been reduced to near Everett's level.

Lazydazer said...

Any idea what is holding up the delivery of LN19. Hope this is not another Crystal.