Boeing to move 787 tail work out of Seattle

The first Boeing 787 for Ethiopian Airlines is seen in production in front of the 13th 787 for All Nippon Airways on Thursday, June 2, 2011 in Boeing's wide-body plant in Everett, Wash. The first Boeing 787 for Ethiopian Airlines is seen in production in front of the 13th 787 for All Nippon Airways on Thursday, June 2, 2011 in Boeing's wide-body plant in Everett, Wash. Photo: Picasa, Aubrey Cohen/seattlepi.com Photo: Picasa, Aubrey Cohen/seattlepi.com Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Boeing to move 787 tail work out of Seattle 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

Boeing will produce horizontal stabilizers for the stretch 787-9 airliner in Salt Lake City and Italy, the company said on Thursday.

Boeing moved initial development of the 787-9 stabilizer to its Seattle Development Center after confronting workmanship problems with 787-8 stabilizers from Italian Supplier Alenia Aeronautica. It previously had not said where it would build the stabilizers long-term.

"The plan all along was to only do the initial work in Seattle while a decision was made on a permanent location," spokesman Doug Alder said Thursday. "Currently the Developmental Center in Seattle does the development work on the 787-9 horizontal stabilizer as well as initial production. The plan is to transition all of that work to Boeing Salt Lake City and Alenia."

Boeing opened a new 787 vertical fin assembly line at its Salt Lake City plant in June, to supply the new 787 line in North Charleston, S.C. Boeing's Everett 787 line gets vertical fins from Frederickson, Wash.

Salt Lake City is scheduled to start building the horizontal stabilizer late this year, with first delivery in the first quarter of 2013, Alder said. He said the company is still finalizing the date for first delivery from Alenia.

The decision won't cost the Puget Sound region any jobs because the company will bring more work to the Developmental Center, Alder said. He said Salt Lake City could grow from 522 employees to 650.

Why two sources?

"Whenever it makes sense from either a financial or technology standpoint, we try to have more than one source for parts and assemblies," Boeing said in a statement. "Additional sourcing lowers risk and often drives better performance."

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