Boeing opens door to South Carolina deliveries

Boeing has set the last major cog in place on its new commercial aircraft site in South Carolina, the object of union ire and a hot-button political issue. On Friday, Boeing cut the ribbon on a gleaming delivery center, where airline customers will come to take possession of their long-awaited 787 Dreamliner planes, about three years behind schedule. "Today, we celebrate the opening of the Boeing South Carolina Delivery Center and look forward to delivering our first South Carolina-built 787s in 2012," said Jack Jones, vice president and general manager at Boeing's site in North Charleston. "Customers will come from around the world to take delivery of their 787 and will see the great pride and talent of our Boeing South Carolina teammates." But the decision to expand production of the 787 Dreamliner, the new twin-aisle plane made primarily of composite materials, beyond Boeing's longtime West Coast home base near Seattle in Washington state has sparked furor from the Machinists union there. South Carolina is a so-called right-to-work state, meaning that employees cannot be forced to join a union or pay union dues as part of the terms of their employment. A complaint filed by the union with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), alleging Boeing opened the South Carolina plant in retaliation for union strikes in Seattle, looks set for a long, drawn-out resolution. Meanwhile, the issue of labor rights has become a flashpoint in the 2012 presidential election campaign. President Barack Obama's appointees to the NLRB have been accused of favoring unions, a traditional pillar of the Democratic Party. Opposition Republicans argue that now more than ever, with the economy struggling to recover from recession, employers must be able to run their businesses as they see fit. Jones, speaking to a group of reporters for European news outlets before the ribbon-cutting ceremony, sidestepped questions about the union fray. "I don't worry about that. We're focused on building airplanes," he said. In the first couple of weeks after Boeing broke ground on the North Charleston complex, a little less than two years ago, there was "a lot of anxiety" among employees over the union friction, he admitted. But that faded quickly, he said, calling the decision to relocate some production "very critical" to Boeing's future, giving the Chicago-based aerospace and defense giant flexibility and spreading its risk. The opening of the South Carolina Delivery Center has "huge" symbolism, he said, because for the first time Boeing will be building and delivering airplanes outside of its Seattle area base. "We have more than enough demand for our airplane," Jones said. Boeing has 56 customers for the 787 Dreamliner and 821 sales, of which the first two have been delivered to Japanese launch customer All Nippon Airways (ANA), he said. Boeing claims the all-new plane, built largely of lightweight advanced composite materials, uses about 20 percent less fuel than aircraft of similar size. ANA took delivery of the first 787 in late September. Boeing initially had planned delivery in the first half of 2008, but production and technical problems caused delays that cost billions of dollars in cancelled orders. The newly opened-for-business Delivery Center is a three-floor structure facing the Final Assembly and Delivery facility, where the first 787 will roll out the door in the first quarter of next year, Jones told reporters. Delivery will take place in the second quarter, he said, but declined to name the customer. At the ribbon-cutting ceremony Friday, where elected officials, community leaders and hundreds of Boeing employees gathered under bright, blue skies, Jones hailed the warp-speed rise of Boeing's massive campus since the ground-breaking just under two years ago, on November 20, 2009. Already the assembly team was shifting to an eight-day rate, meaning a production average of 2.5 planes per month, he said, adding: "Things are really starting to hum." Boeing plans to ramp up production to 10 Dreamliners per month by the end of 2013: three in South Carolina and seven in Washington state.