Boeing to discuss B787 costs with partners: paper

On Wednesday June 17, 2009, 3:19 am EDT
MILAN (Reuters) - Boeing Co (NYSE:BA - News) will discuss added costs for its B787 airliner with supplier partners after the plane's first flight, Boeing Chief Executive Jim McNerney said in an interview published on Wednesday.
Italy's aerospace and defense company Finmeccanica SpA (Milan:SIFI.MI - News) unit Alenia Aeronautica is supplying 14 percent of the fuselage of the B787 plane, which has been delayed and has seen additional costs, Il Giornale newspaper said.
"We have a precise idea of our extra costs. With our partners we will find a meeting point. The outlook will be clearer after the first flight and with the increase in the pace of production," McNerney told the newspaper.
"From the end of 2012 we will build 10 a month," he said at the Paris Air Show.
The newspaper said the first B787 flight could take place next week.
On quality of B787 supplies, McNerney said problems were nearly all resolved.
"In the Italian case, there are fewer workers being transferred to the U.S. to complete the sections of fuselage produced in Italy and assembled by Global Aeronautica, the joint (venture) we have with Alenia," he said. "Progress is continuous."
After the first version, Boeing will use more in-house labor to build the plane "but respecting the expectations of our partners that have and continue to invest in the program," said.
On the economic crisis, McNerney said Boeing has had 60 order cancellations from its order book of 3,700 planes. The pace of production of its largest planes will fall a little in 2010 but grow in 2011 with the B787.
(Writing by Nigel Tutt; Editing by David Holmes)