Boeing Co. said Tuesday that it was re-inspecting work carried out by a key partner on its 787 Dreamliner aircraft to ensure it met the U.S. aerospace group’s own standards. The company said it was assessing the impact on the production and delivery schedule for the new plane, already two-and-a-half years behind schedule.
Boeing said last month that issues that arose with testing equipment could see its latest year-end target for first delivery slip by a few weeks. Boeing had halted work on building 787s and grounded the test airplanes to fix problems found with the horizontal stabilizers made by the Alenia unit of Italy’s Finmeccanica.
“As part of the resolution of these issues, Boeing conducted an assessment of Alenia’s manufacturing processes, which has resulted in the need to conduct some additional inspections on flight test and production airplanes,” the company said in a statement Tuesday. “The inspections will verify Alenia’s production processes and workmanship are up to the Boeing standards.”
