The first Boeing 787 Dreamliner assembled in South Carolina rolled out of the company’s North Charleston final assembly building Friday before a crowd of nearly 7,000 employees and invited guests, Boeing said.

The jet, which will go to Air India, is the first Boeing commercial airplane produced in the Southeastern United States, according to the company.

“This is a proud moment for Boeing as we roll out an airplane from our third final assembly site,” said Jim Albaugh, president and chief executive of Boeing Commercial Airplanes. He welcomed the South Carolina workforce “into a small and elite fraternity” of people who have built a commercial airplane.

The celebration featured aerial displays, music and entertainment, Boeing said. Employees cheered and slapped noisemakers as they made their way to the rollout ceremony, ABC News 4 reported.

From groundbreaking to rollout

Boeing selected North Charleston for its second 787 final assembly line on Oct. 28, 2009, and broke ground that November. The final assembly building was finished in June 2011, and production began later that month, the company said. Employees in North Charleston began work on this first airplane last July, The Herald of Everett, Wash., reported.

“Every one of our South Carolina teammates should be extremely proud of this historic accomplishment,” said Jack Jones, vice president and general manager of Boeing South Carolina. “This team has shown that we can build airplanes in South Carolina that meet the high Boeing quality standards, and do so with an exceptional workplace safety record.”

Jones calls his workforce “The Remarkables,” and before the rollout he led the crowd in a chant of “We build jets!” ABC News 4 reported.

Marco Cavazzoni, vice president and general manager of final assembly, said the day belonged to the workforce. “Six-thousand teammates are walking in here. They’re the ones celebrating today,” he told the station.

Political leaders who fought for the plant shared the stage. “We just proved today that we build things and we build them well,” Gov. Nikki Haley said, according to ABC News 4.

“This is probably the most technologically advanced accomplishment of the South Carolina workforce in decades,” said U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham. “People who are looking to locate are going to look at South Carolina differently.”

Graham and Cavazzoni both compared the event to the Wright brothers’ work at Kitty Hawk, N.C., calling it the biggest aviation accomplishment in the South since then, the station reported. Former Gov. Mark Sanford, who was governor when Boeing chose North Charleston, called the jet a world-class product built in North Charleston, according to the station.

What comes next

The airplane now moves to the flight line for systems checks and engine runs ahead of taxi tests and its first flight, Boeing said. It remains on schedule for delivery to Air India in mid-2012.

“We’ll celebrate today, and tomorrow we begin the process of getting the airplane ready for delivery to our Air India customer,” Jones said.

Boeing South Carolina also fabricates, integrates and assembles the midbody and aft fuselage sections for the 787, according to the company. Finished sections go either to final assembly in North Charleston or by Dreamlifter cargo jet to Boeing’s original 787 line in Everett, Wash.

The North Charleston line is central to Boeing’s goal of building 10 787s a month by the end of 2013, The Herald reported, with seven a month coming from Everett and three from North Charleston.

“Charleston looks very good,” Boeing CEO Jim McNerney said during a conference call with analysts and journalists this week, according to The Herald. Boeing has applied lessons from Everett to the new line and adjusted the Everett line as well. “We’re trying to make them the same. … We’re trying to duplicate and learn rather than separate and be different,” McNerney said.

The rollout comes after a rocky stretch for the program. Boeing delivered the first 787, built in Everett, to Japan’s All Nippon Airways last September, about three years behind schedule, The Herald reported.

The North Charleston plant was also at the center of a labor dispute last year, when the National Labor Relations Board accused Boeing of choosing South Carolina to retaliate against Machinists in Washington for past strikes. That case was dropped in December after the union reached a contract deal with Boeing that secured the 737 MAX for Renton, Wash.