Boeing Co. unveiled its newest jetliner in North Charleston on Friday, with President Donald Trump speaking in front of the first 787-10 Dreamliner, the one model of the jet the company will build only in South Carolina.
Thousands of employees at the Boeing South Carolina site celebrated the debut along with Trump and Gov. Henry McMaster, the company said. The Post and Courier put the crowd at more than 5,000 people and said it was the largest rollout celebration in Boeing’s history. The event was broadcast live online.
“That is one beautiful airplane,” Trump said, according to a White House transcript. “Congratulations to the men and women here who have built it.”
What rolled out
The 787-10 is the third and longest member of the Dreamliner family, an 18-foot stretch of the 787-9, Boeing said. The company said it will now prepare the airplane for its first flight in the coming weeks and plans to begin deliveries to airlines in 2018.
The jet has won 149 orders from nine customers, according to Boeing. Launch customer Singapore Airlines has committed to buy 49 of them, The Post and Courier reported.
The first 787-10 left the North Charleston final assembly line last month and sat in a nearby paint hangar until Thursday, the newspaper reported.
Boeing says the 787-10 will deliver up to 10% better fuel use and emissions than competing jets. Since the 787 family entered service in 2011, it has flown more than 140 million people on 530 routes, the company said.
“This airplane, the most efficient in its class, is the result of years of hard work and dedication from our Boeing teammates, suppliers and community partners in South Carolina and across the globe,” said Kevin McAllister, president and CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, in the company’s announcement.
He put it more briefly to the crowd. “This airplane rocks,” McAllister said, according to The Post and Courier.
Seven years from swampland
Boeing chose North Charleston in 2009 for its second 787 final assembly line, joining its plant in Everett, Wash. Dennis Muilenburg, Boeing’s chairman, president and CEO, recounted that history on Friday.
“This area here seven years ago was swampland,” Muilenburg said of the campus next to Charleston International Airport, according to The Post and Courier. “Today, after $2 billion of investment and partnership in the community, this is a modern aerospace facility building the highest technology airplanes in the world.”
In Boeing’s announcement, he called what is happening at the site “a true American success story.”
“Our commitment to you and to our country is we’re going to continue to build dreams,” Muilenburg told Trump, the newspaper reported.
Trump’s message
Trump used the event to return to themes from his campaign: lower taxes, fewer regulations, a bigger military and more manufacturing jobs at home.
“We’re here today to celebrate American engineering and American manufacturing. We’re also here today to celebrate jobs,” Trump said, according to the White House transcript. “This is our mantra: Buy American and Hire American.”
He also spoke about Boeing’s defense business. Of the F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter, he said, “We are looking seriously at a big order.” On a new Air Force One, a Boeing program, he said, “it looks like we’re getting closer and closer.”
“The relationship between Boeing and the new administration has clearly gotten off to a great start,” Saj Ahmad, chief analyst at London-based Strategic Aero Research, told The Post and Courier.
Jobs and a global supply chain
The celebration came as Boeing trims its commercial airplanes workforce. The company has cut more than 11,000 jobs worldwide, or 7.1% of its workforce, since last year, The Post and Courier reported. About 700 of those cuts came at its North Charleston facilities, which still employ 7,565 people and rank among the region’s largest employers, according to the newspaper.
The Dreamliner is assembled in the United States, but many of its parts come from abroad. The wings are made in Japan, the midbody is built in Italy and some engines are made in the United Kingdom, The Post and Courier reported.
After the union vote
Friday’s ceremony followed a vote on Wednesday in which hourly production workers at Boeing South Carolina decided against representation by the International Association of Machinists.
Of the roughly 3,000 eligible workers, 2,828 cast ballots, and 74%, or 2,097 votes, went against the union, The Post and Courier reported.
“We’re disappointed the workers at Boeing South Carolina will not yet have the opportunity to see all the benefits that come with union representation,” Machinists lead organizer Mike Evans said, according to the newspaper.
Joan Robinson-Berry, vice president and general manager of Boeing South Carolina, said the workers “will continue to move forward as one team,” the newspaper reported.
Trump closed his remarks by thanking the state. “God bless the United States of America, and God bless Boeing,” he said.
