Boeing Co.'s commercial airplanes chief Ray Conner declared Wednesday that the 787 has "turned the corner," with the fix for its recent battery problem all but completely implemented and production on track to rise to 10 jets a month by year end.
At Boeing's annual investor conference, Conner confidently predicted that the 787 and the forthcoming 777X will dominate the widebody jet market against competition from Airbus.
Conner indicated that both the proposed 777X and 787-10 are close to official launch.
"Momentum on the development programs continues to intensify," he told the audience of Wall Street analysts at the conference. "We are in a lot more detailed discussions than you guys realize with our customers."
Boeing is a major Ohio employer that also buys parts made by in-state companies, such as GE Aviation, based in Evendale.
Conner displayed a product line chart that for the first time publicly confirmed the seating capacity of the proposed 777-8X and 777-9X variants. While the 350-seat 777-8X will go head-to-head with Airbus's much-touted A350-1000, the 777-9X - carrying more than 400 passengers - "will be kind of sitting there by itself" with no competitive offering from Airbus, he said.
It is widely expected that Boeing will launch the 787-10 - the final and largest member of the Dreamliner jet family - at the Paris Air Show next month and the 777X later in the year.
Conner said the 787-10 likely would have been launched already if not for the three-month grounding of the fleet due to the battery overheating incidents in January.
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