Boeing to up 737 production

An astonishing 42 units per month by 2014 is now the target for Boeing with its single 737 production facility at Renton near Seattle, Washington State.  Together with its other commercial aircraft lines this is virtually two aircraft every working day.  By comparison Airbus currently produces around 36 A320 series aircraft at Toulouse, Hamburg and Tianjin (China), which is expected to reach 40 in early 2012.

The 737 is a remarkable piece of engineering with 6,700 built and future orders standing around 2,100.  At the present time assembly now takes just 11 days (5,500 aeroplane unit hours of work) with a future target of 6 days (4,000 aeroplane unit hours of work).  There are two 737 commercial aircraft production lines and one for the military variant.

It was in April 1967 that the first prototype flew.  At the time Boeing was considered behind the pace with aircraft design, the BAC 1-11, Douglas DC-9, and Fokker F28 were already well into flight certification.  Lufthansa was first airline to order the new single aisle twin-engined aircraft, remarkably today again the lead carrier with the 747-8 Intercontinental. www.boeing.com/commercial

Index/Home page
 

OUR READERS' FINEST WORDS (All times and dates are GMT)

All comments are filtered to exclude any excesses but the Editor does not have to agree with what is being said. 100 words maximum