Boeing Commercial Airplanes CEO Stephanie Pope recently announced that the company has rolled out the last of its 787 Dreamliner aircraft undergoing “join verification” at its facility in Everett, Washington.
In a social media post, Pope said the Boeing team examined the fuselage of over 100 aircraft “for possible imperfections that measured the width of a human hair.” While noting these imperfections “did not affect the safety of the airplane,” she said they did not meet Boeing’s engineering standards.
Boeing engineers completed the exhaustive work on 122 airplanes inspected over several years as deliveries plummeted.
“I am incredibly proud of our teams in Everett and North Charleston for completing this work over the past two and a half years … quietly, methodically and focused on delivering safe, quality airplanes to our customers,” Pope said in the post.
Workers who supported the 787 join verification are now moving onto new assignments. Pope said many of them would be helping the company advance its 777X program.
“This is what we mean when we said we would shut down the ‘shadow factories’ and turn our full attention to building all-new airplanes,” she said.
