The chief executive of the Boeing Company said Wednesday that the aircraft maker was making “solid progress” toward fixing a structural weakness that was discovered last month on its new jet, the 787 Dreamliner.
But the executive, W. James McNerney Jr., said it was too early to say when the plane would make its first test flight or how much Boeing would have to pay customers in penalties for the delays. Boeing shares closed down 2.37 percent.
Stock analysts have said that the delays could cost Boeing billions of dollars in concessions to airlines waiting for the plane. And The Seattle Times quoted two unidentified engineers on Wednesday as saying that the first test flight would probably not happen for four to six months.
But in a conference call with analysts and reports Wednesday, Mr. McNerney said only that the company would not be able to set a new flight date or disclose the financial impacts until later in this quarter.
The Dreamliner, which will be the world’s most advanced passenger plane, is considered crucial to Boeing’s future. The company has 850 orders for the plane, which is made of lightweight composite materials and is supposed to be lighter and more fuel-efficient than other commercial aircraft.
Given that the 787 is two years behind schedule, stock analysts have also questioned how profitable the plane will be.
James A. Bell, Boeing’s chief financial officer, said on the conference call that the delays were “obviously putting pressure” on the projected profit on the program.
But he said that with the huge backlog of orders, Boeing could offset some of the penalty payments to airlines and other costs through savings and efficiencies in production.
Mr. McNerney said engineers had settled on a way to fix the structural problem, which involved unexpected stress where the wings attach to the fuselage.
“There is nothing we have learned to lead us to believe this is anything more than a local issue that can be solved with a local fix,” he said.
The structural problem was discovered last month during a test that involved bending the wings. Boeing has said that the stresses occurred at several spots where support rods in the wings met the fuselage. It said it needed to reinforce those areas.
Mr. McNerney said Wednesday that the company had “a high degree of confidence” that it knew how to fix the problem. He said engineers were now figuring out how to do the work.
But he also acknowledged that trying to build a plane with mostly composite materials had been harder than expected. “As you look back at this program, there is no doubt that the baseline was too ambitious,” he said.
The call came after Boeing said that its second-quarter earnings had risen 17 percent from a year earlier, to $998 million, or $1.41 a share. That compared with $852 million, or $1.16 a share, during the same period last year, when the company took a charge of 22 cents a share for delays in delivering military planes.
In the latest quarter, sales in the company’s large military business rose 9 percent, helping to offset the impact of the recession on the company’s commercial-plane business. Overall revenue increased by 1 percent to $17.15 billion from $16.96 billion a year earlier.
From New York Times
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