The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the troubled 787 program will be delayed by at least six more months, which would push the first deliveries into the summer of 2010 -- more than two years late.

Some industry analysts have been prepared for Boeing to announce a further delay of at least four months, and possibly longer, in part because of the two-month-long Machinists strike, but mostly due to mounting problems that have hit the program.

The first 787s were originally to have been delivered to airlines starting in May 2008. Then various production-related issues grounded the program and embarrassed Boeing and hurt its reputation. The first in a series of delays was announced in late 2007. Two more delays have been announced since then.

This will be the fourth major delay.

An industry source with knowledge of the matter, asked about the Journal report, said Boeing is still unsure of the length of the next delay, but six months "is probably in the ballpark.'' This person said a new date for first flight has not been set.

Boeing is likely to update media and analysts about the status of the 787 program later this month, probably about mid December, once executives are certain they know the full scope of the delay, according to this person.

The Journal quoted sources as saying that Boeing officials have been meeting with suppliers and partners on the jet program in recent days in an effort to "get their arms around a number of challenges that have sprung up in part because of the volume of work that Boeing outsourced on the program. "

The Journal story had this damaging comment from the CEO of Virgin Atlantic, a 787 customer:

In a recent interview, Virgin Atlantic Airways Chief Executive Steve Ridgeway voiced customers' growing frustration. "We're pretty fed up," he said. "We've got no clarity from Boeing."

Virgin was originally due to receive its first Dreamliner in 2011, but "we don't know how long the delay is now," Mr. Ridgeway said. He referred to the Dreamliner as "the world's rarest airplane."

As the first airline to fly one of Airbus's recent models, Virgin has experience with the problems that new jetliners encounter. Mr. Ridgeway noted that a lot of attention has been focused on when Boeing will deliver its first Dreamliner, "but nobody's talking about production run-rates" or problems the plane may encounter when it goes into service.

"Just getting the first ones delivered to a handful of airlines isn't the end of the story," Mr. Ridgeway said.

One of those issues is with fasteners. Several thousand must be replaced on four test flight planes now in production in Everett, as well as on two ground-test 787s.

I recently filed THIS report about the extent of Boeing's problems with not only the 787 but its other airplane programs. The 787 woes have robbed Boeing of vital engineering talent that was supposed to have been shifted to 747-8, contributing to a delay of up to a year on that program.

Before the strike, Boeing had said first first flight of the 787, originally set for late August or September of 2007, would take place before the end of the year. The latest fastener issue was discovered on the static test plane last month during the strike. Subsequently, Boeing announced that first flight would not take place this year.

The company has acknowledged that it made serious mistakes on the 787, handing off too much responsibility for engineering and manufacturing to its global partners. Most of the 787 is manufactured in Japan, Italy, Kansas and South Carolina. Early on, Boeing's partners fell behind on kick-starting the new production system. Boeing's also had problems wit its supply chain.

The first 787, which will make the first test flight, has remained in the Boeing's plant in Everett since it was officially rolled out to the public on July 8, 2007. One issue after another has kept Boeing engineers and mechanics scrambling to fix the plane, finish final assembly and get it in the air.

Just how soon that will be is what remains up in the air.

Meanwhile, below is a story I filed earlier Thursday on Boeing's deliveries for November - 4 planes, all built before the strike.

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In what is a pretty remarkable read, Airbus has crafted a candid, internal analysis of Boeing's 787 Dreamliner, using intelligence that in part apparently came from confidential Boeing documents and/or sources. (Does Airbus have spies operating within Boeing?)

The 46-page Airbus report, dated October 2008, was obtained by Jon Ostrower, who writes FlightBolgger for Flight International magazine.

Read Jon's summary and also download the Airbus report.

In addition to Boeing documents, the report also cites intelligence from Spirit, Boeing's biggest supplier, about how much carbon fiber material can actually be laid down per hour by factory machines. Spirit is supplying the forward fuselage of the 787 -- the biggest single fuselage section. The Airbus report says Boeing suppliers can't lay down nearly as much carbon fiber per hour as needed to achieve higher 787 rates. The Airbus report cites Spirit intelligence as the source for the lay-down rate. Spirit, which will build much of the A350 composite fuselage for Airbus, told Ostrower that it did not provide any information to Airbus regarding the 787 carbon fiber lay-down rates.

As Jon notes in his summary, the report details everything from Boeing's serious lack of oversight of its 787 partners to new details about the fastener issue to the 787's weight woes to production and schedule issues. This is part of his summary:

Among the "lessons learnt" by the European airframer, Airbus cites Boeing's challenges with beginning 787 production across the whole of its supply chain. Airbus believes Boeing's early production issues fundamentally originated in a lack of oversight on both design and assembly integration for the high level of outsourcing.

All of this was further exacerbated, according to Airbus, by "low-wage, trained-on-the-job workers that had no previous aerospace experience" working at supplier partners. Airbus believes "inadequate supplier capability in design," contributed further, citing as an example that "Vought had no engineering department when selected" by Boeing.

The report, titled "Boeing 787 Lessons Learnt," was compiled by the head of Airbus engineering intelligence.

Airbus claims the presentation, as well as its competitive intelligence gathering methods, fully comply with all laws. Though when approached about how the information was gathered, Airbus declined to address it specifically, suggesting that a lot of data labelled BOEING PROPRIETARY is freely available online. Airbus added that not all documents labelled BOEING PROPRIETARY are in fact proprietary. A spokesman emphasized that Airbus closely watches the market to draw its own conclusions, as do its competitors.

A search engine query for "Boeing Proprietary PPT" did not yield the slides in question.

In September 2007, just weeks before I was among the lucky passengers on the first Singapore Airlines A380 revenue flight from Singapore to Sydney, Randy Tinseth, Boeing's vice president of marketing for commercial airplanes, wrote in his blog that the cabin of the big Airbus plane might prove to be too quiet.

It was indeed quiet. Even on take off, I could hardly hear the engines.

But Randy caught a lot of flak from readers of his blog, and from John Leahy chief operating officer of Airbus and its super salesman and A380 champ.

This is part of what Randy said at the time:

You may recall media reports earlier this year making a lot of noise about how quiet it was aboard the A380.

In stories about the A380 passenger experience, we read that even seated by a window, you could hear conversations on the other side of the airplane, or even several rows away. In some reports, when passengers mentioned that this might be a bit disconcerting, they were told that one might have to "get used to" eavesdropping on an airplane.

So, I wonder if this also means that we'll hear crying babies many rows further away than on today's airplanes? Or sounds from the galleys?

I don't know about you, but my personal experience is that if you can't sleep because you can hear lots of conversations, or other sounds, you're going to be more fatigued when you arrive.

Not long after that blog posting, Leahy, speaking to reporters covering the Asian Aerospace show, was quoted as saying:

"Boeing is clutching at straws. There is no such thing as an aircraft that is too quiet. If Boeing says that, because they don't have an aircraft that competes, then I think it is frankly embarrassing that they even said that."

Well, it turns out the A380 is too quiet -- at least for Emirates pilots trying to sleep in the crew rest area.

Flight International has a neat little story that the airline's A380 pilots have complained that they are having trouble sleeping because there is too much cabin noise and not enough noise from the plane's engines to cover those sounds -- like babies crying.

The pilots say that the lack of engine noise in the A380's cabin compared with other long-haul airliners means they are constantly disturbed by sounds created by passengers, such as crying babies, flushing vacuum toilets and call bells. Passengers also mistake the rest area for a lavatory, and pull the door handle.

The Dubai-based carrier has asked Airbus for a solution that does not involve substantially adding weight, which rules out insulating the walls of the rest area, situated at the rear of the all-economy main deck, says Emirates senior vice-president, fleet, Capt Ed Davidson.

"We are expecting to hear back from them by the middle of the month," says Davidson, who admits that the airframer has "over delivered" on its noise promises on the airline's Engine Alliance GP7200-powered A380s. One option could be installing lightweight generators to create ambient noise.

We're getting a lot of complaints. It's not something we expected," says Davidson. "On our other aircraft, the engines drown out the cabin noise. [On the A380] the pilots sleep with earplugs but the cabin noise goes straight through them."

Flight International points out that Emirates has located the pilot crew-rest area at the rear of the main deck. That location is unique for Emirates. Singapore and Qantas airlines, which are also operating the plane, are using the Airbus option of locating the pilots' compartment behind the cockpit.

Emirates, according to Flight, said the standard Airbus location for the pilot crew rest would have compromised the design of the airline's upper deck first-class cabin, while the alternative location of the cargo hold was rejected because Emirates thought its flight crews would find it "claustrophobic".

It did not get much media attention, although Reuters had a good story, but EADS confirmed last week that the first of its A330 tankers for Australia will be late.

With the U.S. Air Force tanker competition about to heat up again once President-elect Obama takes office next month, it will be interesting to see how the PR battle between Boeing and Northrop plays out. After a fairly quiet period since September, when Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced he was delaying the competition until the new administration comes in, Northrop recently fired a PR shot across Boeing's bow. (See my previous blog report.)

Below is a column I wrote for Wednesday's paper about the delay of the first A330 tanker for Australia.

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Boeing's engineers and technical workers have approved new four-year contracts, the white-collar SPEEA union announced Monday night. My story is below:

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The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Delta Air Lines, as part of its merger with Northwest, may reduce the number of 787s previously ordered by Northwest. Instead, Delta would take more of the bigger 777s, including the longer range 777-200LR, according to the paper.

When Delta CEO Richard Anderson was in Seattle a couple weeks ago, I asked him about industry speculation, unofficially coming out of Delta, that the airline thought the 787 was too small for its long-haul routes. He would not be specific, only that Delta believed the 787 would fit in well in its merged fleet.

This is what he told me:

"Given the fact that we fly to 380 cities on six continents and that we fly nonstop from our hubs to just about every city in the world of any consequence, different size airplanes with different payloads and range really matter. So the right sized airplane in a market is really important in this business. Given the wide variations of markets we serve, the 787 over the long term will certainly have a role.''

Northwest has 18 Dreamliners on firm order, with options for 50 more.

The Journal reports that Delta is likely to eventually buy more 787s, but only the bigger 787-9 rather than the smaller 787-8.

This report is interesting on several levels. John Leahy of Airbus has long argued that the 787 is too small, and he believes the sweet part of the mid-size market will be planes the size of the A350-900. He told me a year ago that Airbus is finding that even its A350-800 may be too small, and that plane is bigger than the 787-8.

The Delta CEO also made it clear in his interview with me that Delta would buy planes from both Boeing and Airbus, which means Airbus probably has a good shot at eventually selling Delta its A350-900 or the A350-1000, which is aimed at the 777.

With turkey day approaching, I'm off until Monday.

So time for some light feature reporting:

Even though the 787 is delayed until who knows when, one U.S. customer, Continental Airlines, has developed a unique seat and seating arrangement with BE Aerospace to take advantage of the huge windows on the Dreamliner -- which, yes Virginia, will someday carry paying passengers.

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Those nonconforming nutplates that I wrote about a couple of weeks ago are on all Boeing jets, not just the 737. But there are far fewer on the 747, 777 and 767 than are on the 737. Still, Boeing said Tuesday that they must all be found and replaced before any more planes are delivered.

Meanwhile, some Machinists will be spending the upcoming holiday making planes. My story is below.

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If you thought the tanker controversy had died down, pending the arrival of the Obama administration and a new Pentagon competition between Boeing and Northrop Grumman, well, think again.

It is still heated -- at least on the Northrop side, which may feel its odds of supplying an Airbus plane as the next Air Force tanker are longer with Barack Obama in the White House, since he was outspoken during the campaign about "buy America."

This week, Northrop ran a full page ad in the Washington Post that prompted an unusually strong rebuke from John Young, the Pentagon's top weapons buyer. It was Young's previous comments about the difference in price between the Boeing and Northrop tankers that Northrop used in the ad.

So much for the "cooling off" period sought by Defense Secretary Robert Gates when he delayed the tanker competition until the nerxt administration takes over. Boeing has been fairly quiet since then. Northrop had too, until this week when it ran the ad, and resumed media e-mails about its tanker.

The ad is based on comments made last month by Defense Undersecretary Young. He had told reporters that he was working closely with the Air Force to identify minimum mandatory requirements for the new aircraft. Once the Air Force has decided on the basic tanker requirements, Young said one option for the next administration would be to ask the competing companies to submit their best and final offers and then "let price be the deciding factor." That approach was considered before the Pentagon canceled the current competition, he said, but officials were not convinced the companies would agree to those changed terms.

In the case of the tanker competition, Young said at the time , the life cycle costs were very close, but Northrop's tanker was slated to cost $12.5 billion for development and the first 68 aircraft, nearly $3 billion less than the Boeing tanker.

This week, on Wednesday, the Northrop ad in the Post used Young's comments with this kicker:

"A member of the American public might conclude that Boeing sought to charge more than the Defense Department reasonably expected.'' The ad attributed the comment to an unnamed DOD official. But it was Young. And he was not happy, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.

This is from the WSJ story:

Briefing reporters Thursday, Mr. Young said he had confronted Northrop over the ad. "I called the company and said, 'I don't appreciate this and I don't think it's necessary,' " Mr. Young said. "I just don't see what the purpose was."

Northrop says it is trying to refocus attention on the tanker situation while lawmakers and President-elect Barack Obama's transition team weigh weapons-buying decisions that Mr. Gates has postponed until 2009 or later. "We want to make sure they understand this issue is out there and it needs to be resolved in a quick manner," said Northrop Grumman spokesman Randy Belote.

The deal's politics are almost certain to get more complicated as U.S. job losses mount. On Wednesday, Chicago-based Boeing said it planned to cut 27% of its workers at its Wichita, Kan., facility, in part because of the delayed tanker program.

Meanwhile, Northrop also this week resumed sending e-mail updates to media with the subject line "America's New Tanker: Needed Now.'' This was the broadside fired at Boeing's plane in the latest e-mail:

With the Obama Administration beginning to take shape, it is likely that we are only a few months away from a resumption of the competition to provide the Air Force with the next generation of aerial refueling tankers. It is also likely that when that competition does resume, the debate will sound markedly similar to that which raged earlier this year.

As you'll recall, a key issue repeatedly raised by Boeing's supporters was that Boeing is the truly "American" competitor, while the tanker that Los Angeles-based Northrop Grumman has proposed to build for the Air Force in Mobile, Alabama is somehow "foreign" due to Northrop Grumman's relationship with a European based supplier. It is almost certain we'll hear this again, which is why a story distributed today by the official Chinese news agency Xinhua is particularly relevant.

That story celebrates Boeing's expanding relationship with and reliance on China for parts for many of the aircraft the company builds. "Boeing Co's aircraft parts joint venture in China launched an expansion project in Tianjin," the government news organ reports.

Despite a major economic crisis in the U.S. that is causing US unemployment levels to rapidly rise the story adds that "Boeing said it had purchased more than 1.5 billion U.S. Dollars worth of aviation hardware and services from China since the 1980s and the figure would more than double in the coming years."

Compare that to Northrop Grumman, which plans to invest heavily in Alabama in order to build the tanker and has lined up 230 American suppliers to provide parts and services. While Boeing is proud of its ability to create jobs in China, Northrop Grumman plans to create 48,000 new tanker related jobs here at home - with four new American factories to be constructed so the work can be done.

And while it is true that Northrop Grumman's proposed tanker is based on the highly successful Airbus A330, Northrop Grumman's relationship is with a company that receives its aircraft parts from NATO countries.
Furthermore, that company, EADS, already purchases more than $10 billion worth of parts from American suppliers every year.

The point?

When the tanker replacement competition resumes, do not believe everything you hear about which company is the most American. It is not only untrue, it's a distraction from what is really important - The United States Air Force needs a new tanker now and, with a tanker aircraft as well as a refueling boom that have been built, tested and flown, only Northrop Grumman is ready now to provide it.
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Boeing warned employees Thursday to expect job cuts in 2009.
My story is below, as well as the company memo to workers:

Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal Thursday quoted Airbus as saying it was helped by the Boeing strike.

Airbus says it benefited from a recent strike by factory workers at rival Boeing Co. -- not by stealing jetliner orders, but by getting aircraft suppliers to work harder for the European plane maker.
During the 58-day walkout at Boeing, which ended earlier this month, overstretched suppliers that work for both companies were able to focus more on equipment for Airbus, such as galleys, seats and other cabin fixtures. That relieved some pressure at Airbus, which in August warned that delays in receiving such equipment were holding up jetliner deliveries and risked reducing the number of planes completed this year.

At Airbus, the tight supply pressure has abated, said its top production manager, Tom Williams, executive vice president for programs. He said that work finishing two-aisle, long-range A330 and A340 jetliners was "going pretty well," and better than in the spring. The two-engine A330 is one of Airbus's most popular models. "The strike helped give some of our critical suppliers some breathing space," said Mr. Williams.

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The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that Boeing has finished an assessment of its delivery schedule in the wake of the 57-day Machinists strike, and the deliveries of all its jet models (other than the 787) will be delayed by as much as 10 weeks.

This was complicated by the nutplate problems that had hit the 737, which I previously wrote about.

Below is an excerpt from the WSJ story:

According to people familiar with discussions inside Boeing, officials agreed on a new schedule last week after reviewing how long it would take to get the factories up to their normal rate of producing about 41 jets a month. The company began notifying customers this week of the new delivery schedule, which will be worked through Boeing's entire order book.

The new schedule, according to these people, adds between 65 and 70 days to the company's timetable, depending on the model.

Boeing had said before the strike ended that delivery delays would be at least a day for each day the strike lasted. Boeing confirmed Wednesday that deliveries will be "in excess" of eight weeks. Suppliers were hit hard by the strike, too.

Precision Castparts Corp., which makes metal forgings for jet engines and other parts, said Wednesday it reduced its work force and cut its manufacturing by half because of the strike and won't resume full production until February.

Speaking Wednesday at a New York investors conference, Boeing jetlienr boss Scott Carson said about 90 percent of Boeing's machinists have returned to work since the strike ended.

But he said Boeign believes about 5 percent probably will not return.

"We've been back to work for a couple of weeks and the mood is good," Carson said..

787 wing box loaded to destruction in Saturday test. Boeing photo

Boeing says it has still not decided whether to break the wings of its 787 static test plane as part of the upcoming certification tests. But Boeing engineers did test to destruction a 50-foot long 787 wing box section Saturday. It broke well above the required 150 percent of the design load.

My story is below.

Watch this Boeing video of the 787 wing test.

Watch this classic video of the 777 wing breaking in 1995. (When the 777 wing snaps, watch the reaction of then 777 boss Alan Mulally, who later headed BCA before moving on in late 2006 to run Ford Motor Co. Former Boeing CEO and Chairman Phil Condit is also seen in the video))

Watch this video of the Airbus A380 wing break test.

Boeing must still decide if it will break the wings of its 787 static test plane, shown here in the test ring. Boeing photo.

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Delta CEO Richard Anderson was in Seattle Monday, and I asked him about the 787 as well as Delta staying a very loyal Boeing customer. Northwest, which is now part of Delta, has 18 Dreamliners on firm order with options to buy 50 more. Even though Northwest is a big Airbus customer for the A330, Delta has stuck with Boeing. Not any more, Anderson told me. My report is below:

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The Boeing Co. and its engineering union have reached a tentative agreement on new four-year contracts.

Details of the offer are below:

Here are the first details. More to come.

Here is the union's statement:

SEATTLE – Tentative agreement was reached today between the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace (SPEEA), IFPTE Local 2001, and The Boeing Company on new four-year contracts covering 21,000 engineers and technical workers.

The two sides reached agreement early Friday. Union negotiators are recommending members approve the agreements. If approved by union members, the agreements will replace existing contracts that expire Dec. 1.

Two contracts are involved in the negotiations. The first covers 14,000 engineers in the SPEEA Professional Bargaining Unit. The second contract covers 7,000 technical workers in the union's Technical Bargaining Unit. While the majority of workers are in the Puget Sound region, the contracts cover employees in Oregon, Utah and California. Both contracts expire Dec. 1.

No details can be released until after union negotiators present the agreements to the SPEEA Professional and Technical bargaining unit councils at a special meeting set for 6 p.m., this evening (Friday, Nov. 14).

Main Table negotiations started Oct. 29.

--Guest post by Margaret Santjer, business editor

UPDATE: Here is my story:

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Boeing has just announced a major delay in the 747-8 program -- as much as nine months.

Although the 57-day Machinists strike may be partially to blame, the 787 delays took valuable engineering resources from the program and there were other problems. The Boeing announcement is below:

Also, Boeing says the 777 freighter, now in flight testing, is also being delayed for about two months as a result of the strike. Air France was to have taken delivery late this year, but won't get the first freighter until early 2009. Air France gets the third production plane, which is in the Boeing Everett plant. No work was done on that plane during the strike, which is the reason for the program delay.

Two planes are being used in the on-going flight test program, which Boeing told me will wrap up next month.

UPDATE: My story is below

BY James Wallace
P-I aerospace reporter

Back in 1995, The Boeing Co. delivered its first big new 777 on time, to the very day it was promised in fact, to United Airlines. Those were the days.

Today, Boeing's prized 787 Dreamliner is so far behind schedule that some customers won't get their planes for up to three years after they were supposed to be delivered. And it's not the only new Boeing airplane in trouble. Boeing announced Friday a major delay to another important program. The first of the new 747-8s will be up to a year late. That's not all. First delivery of Boeing's new 777 freighter will be delayed about two months because of the recently ended 57-day Machinists strike.

Boeing also has a problem with its popular 737. Before any more planes can be delivered from the Renton plant, workers must replace hundreds of fasteners in completed fuselage assemblies because they don't comply with specs.

Meanwhile, Boeing is slowly bringing its jet production back to life after the Machinists strike shut down all of its assembly lines and brought the supply chain to a halt.

"They have a problem,'' said Richard Aboulafia, vice president of analysis for the Teal Group, a consulting business in Fairfax, Va.

"I don't know if it's resources or poor execution or processes, but they have a problem and they have to turn this around. And it's spread to their military programs, too,'' he added, noting a series of problems with Boeing's satellite programs. "It could be a mix of things, from bad planning to lack of engineering resources. But it's something they have to work on. They either have to spend more or change the way they develop their products. There is some hubris involved, too. Boeing has over promised. They had a very aggressive 787 schedule from the start.''

At least Boeing is apparently not facing another strike, one by its engineers, who are already in short supply on programs such as the 747-8. Boeing and SPEEA, the white-collar union that represents about 21,000 engineers and technical staff, announced Friday a tentative deal on a new four-year contract. The membership is expected to approve the contract, which has the backing of the union leadership.

And Boeing is not alone in experiencing delays with complex new airplane programs. Rival Airbus was about two years late delivering its A380, which supplanted the 747 as the world's biggest passenger plane when it entered service with Singapore Airlines in October 2007.

Louis Gallois, chief executive of Airbus-parent EADS, said Friday in a conference call with analysts that Airbus may not meet its goal of delivering 21 of the double-decker jets in 2009 because of lingering problems with cabin wiring, the same issue that caused the initial delay.

The delay on the Boeing 747-8 was not unexpected, although the length of the delay was a surprise.

Boeing said the first 747-8, a freighter, will not be delivered to launch customer Cargolux until sometime in the third quarter of 2010. Cargolux was supposed to have received its planes starting in September 2009. Delivery of the passenger version of the 747-8, known as the Intercontinental, has slipped, too – from late 2010 until the second quarter of 2011.

Lufthansa is so far the only airline to order the Intercontinental.

"This is a substantial delay,'' a Cargolux spokesman told FleetBuzzEditorial.com. "Perhaps it's not really a surprise given the recent strike, but we are still looking forward to taking delivery of our new freighters.''

Lufthansa said it remains committed to the 747-8 Intercontinental and is talking with Boeing about new delivery dates.

The Machinists strike played only a small role in the delay, if any at all.

For months before the strike there were reports the new jumbo jet was overweight and would be late because of so many design changes.

Last month, when Boeing announced its third-quarter results, Chairman and Chief Executive Jim McNerney confirmed the program was experiencing "cost" and "schedule" pressure.

In its announcement Friday, Boeing said several factors were responsible for the delay, including "supply chain delays driven by design changes to the airplane, limited availability of engineering resources inside Boeing and the recent Machinists strike that halted production in the company's factories.''

The 747-8 is a bigger and more efficient version of the current 747-400. It will use fuel-efficient engines developed by General Electric for the 787. It will also have a new interior and a new wing, which has required strengthening since the program was launched in 2005. That has contributed to the weight problem.

"Our entire team has worked hard to mitigate growing schedule risk on this program but have been unable to overcome the collective impact of work statement increases to the original design, a tight supply of engineering resources, and the recent Machinists' strike," Boeing Commercial Airplanes President and CEO Scott Carson said in a statement. "We are clearly disappointed in what this schedule change means for our customers, employees, suppliers and other stakeholders. However, it is the appropriate and prudent decision to ensure a successful program, and we are committed to working with our customers to mitigate any disruption it causes them."

Boeing said the revised 747-8 schedule is the result of a comprehensive assessment of the production system and flight-test plan that began in late August and included the impact of the recent strike.

"The remaining work on the 747-8 program is well defined,'' Ross R. Bogue, vice president and general manager of the 747 program and the Everett site, said in a statement. "This schedule adjustment provides the time we need to finish that work and bring both airplanes to market successfully for our customers."

Boeing, as well as the entire aerospace industry, is facing a serious shortage of qualified engineers.

In an interview last month, Ray Goforth, executive director of SPEEA, the union that represents Boeing engineers, said the company has relied too much on non-Boeing engineers to work on programs such as the 787 and 747-8. Russian engineers from Boeing's design bureau in Moscow are heavily involved in the 747-8.

"That program is falling apart,'' Goforth said of the 747-8. He said he talked recently with a 747-8 engineer who had not had a day off in six months. She had been too busy fixing mistakes made by Russian engineers, Goforth said.

Mike Denton, vice president of engineering for Boeing Commercial Airplanes, told the P-I that Boeing ran into problems because it had to keep many of its top engineers on the 787 and could not shift them to the 747-8. He also noted that Boeing has had a difficult time hiring seasoned aerospace engineers. There are too few for market demand, he said. "To find experience we have had to turn more to contract engineers and even then it has been very competitive," Denton said.

While the strike was not the only factor in getting the 747-8 off track, it was solely responsible for the delay of about two months to the 777 freighter. Air France will get the first 777 freighter in early 2009 rather than late this year, Boeing said. Although the test flight program, using two 777 freighters, will be wrapped up next month, Air France takes delivery of the third production plane, which is in the Everett plant.

No work was done on that plane during the strike, and it will take a while longer to get the 777 production lines up to speed after the strike.

Even though Boeing's production system and its supply chain are slowly getting back to normal after the strike, production of the 737 could be further delayed by an issue unrelated to the strike. The 737 is Boeing's best-selling plane. Before the strike, two assembly lines in Renton were producing more than one 737 each work day.

Boeing's partner, Spirit AeroSystems in Wichita, Kan., ships already assembled 737 fuselages by rail to the Renton plant. But Spirit recently discovered that one of its suppliers had not been putting a cadmium coating on a small part called a nutplate, which acts like a fastener. The coating protects the nutplate from corroding the aluminum fuselage.

There are thousands of nutplates on each 737, but only a third of them, mainly on the fuselage and engine struts, have the nonconforming nutplates. They must all be found and replaced before another 737 leaves the Renton plant, said Beverly Holland, a spokeswoman for Boeing's manufacturing. She said Boeing has brought in extra mechanics from Spirit to help locate and remove the nutplates from 737 fuselage assemblies now at the Renton plant. The parts are also being removed and replaced on 737s that are finished and awaiting delivery to customers. Boeing has already delivered several hundred 737s to airlines with the nonconforming nutplates. Boeing is in talks with the FAA about fixes to those jets already in service around the world.

Boeing notified the FAA of the nonconforming nutplates on Oct. 31, during the strike. Boeing and FAA engineering have determined there is no immediate safety concern.

Those airplanes in service are not currently being inspected for the nonconforming nutplates, so the FAA does not yet know how long it will take to replace the nutplates on each 737 in service. Each of the airplanes in service are inspected at certain intervals and corrosion would be something the operators would look for during these inspections.

Holland said Friday that Boeing is assessing the 737 delivery schedule as a result of the strike and the nutplate issue, and she could not yet say how much of a delay the two events will cause.

Boeing is also assessing how long its 787 will be delayed because of the strike and other issues. Boeing has already acknowledged that the Machinists strike delayed first flight from the fourth quarter of this year until 2009. But there is another potentially serious issue that could cause further delays. An estimated 3 percent of the fasteners on four test flight planes at the Everett plant, plus two others that have been assembled for ground testing, were installed incorrectly and will have to be removed and replaced.

It appears that the fastener issue is the result of work done by Boeing's global partners, but Boeing said it is conducting an extensive analysis to determine the "root cause." The issue is not with the fasteners but how they were installed.

Boeing doesn't yet know what effect the fastener issue will have on the 787 schedule.

The 787 was supposed to have flown about 14 months ago and the first planes delivered in May of this year.

Because the flight-test program will be delayed, initial deliveries will be pushed back, too.

The Dreamliner may not be carrying paying passengers until sometime in 2010. Before a series of production-related delays hit the 787 program, Boeing planned to deliver up to 112 Dreamliners by the end of 2009. Boeing subsequently reduced the delivery number to 25 by the end of 2009. Some industry analysts now believe Boeing won't deliver any 787s in 2009

Boeing has said it is reassessing the 787 schedule and will have something more to say later.

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