Boeing 787 Dreamliner Finally Takes Off

EVERETT, Wash. TheStreet) -- Boeing's (BA) first 787 Dreamliner took off for Japan on Tuesday, after the company handed the plane over to debut customer ANA.

At a ceremony on Monday, Boeing turned over a symbolic key of the aircraft to airline executives.

With the first aircraft originally scheduled to be delivered in May 2008, the ceremony was more than three years late. But, as typically happens when the first model of an eagerly awaited aircraft occurs, frustration with the delay is dissipating.

"The 787 is about to take the world by storm," said BB&T analyst Carter Leake, in a recent report. "Boeing is about to transition from what has been one of its darkest periods to what we believe will be its best-ever decade."

Boeing has more than 850 orders for the aircraft in hand. The key question now is when the plane will become profitable.

In an interview with The Seattle Times, Boeing CEO Jim McNerney said standard accounting allows the initial heavy investment to be spread over many years and hundreds of airplanes. On that basis, he told the newspaper, "We will be profitable on day one."

However, it will take time for the program to be cash-positive. Total spending on 787 development is estimated to be between $17 billion and $23 billion.

Asked whether the 787 would burn cash into the 2020s, McNerney told reporters, "We have a program accounting method which matches cost and revenues and you may be asking the question when does the cash breakeven happen, and that is a number of years out ahead of us, but not as late as you have just mentioned," according to Reuters.

ANA, moving to extend the benefit of the first flight, has scheduled a series of them. The first flight with paying passengers will be a special charter between Tokyo Narita and Hong Kong, scheduled for Oct. 26. The first scheduled service will occur Nov. 1, with four domestic flights -- a Haneda-Okayama round-trip followed by a Haneda-Hiroshima round-trip.

Then comes service on the first international route, Haneda-Beijing in December, followed by the first long-haul international route, Haneda-Frankfurt in January 2012. That flight will be operated as part of a joint venture with Star Alliance partner Lufthansa, assuring connecting traffic at both ends of the route.

-- Written by Ted Reed in Charlotte, N.C.

>To contact the writer of this article, click here: Ted Reed

Readers Also Like:

>>Top 5 'Most American' Cars

>>'Pan Am' Flies Into Crowded Early '60s Airspace