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: Only a few days ago staff at Boeing were opening a ceremonial barrel of sake at the factory in Seattle where assembly was starting of the first 787 Dreamliner aircraft to be delivered to All Nippon Airways (ANA), the launch customer. At the ceremony Boeing affirmed that the virgin test flight of the world’s first big airliner to be made largely of composite materials, rather than aluminium, would take place by the end of June. But on Tuesday June 23rd Boeing’s share price fell by almost 9% when the company announced that because of structural flaws the test flight would be delayed. Boeing said it would take weeks before a further date could be set.

ANA, which is already seeking compensation for the plane’s being two years late, now faces the prospect that it will not be available for delivery early next year, as had been promised. At the Paris air show this month Scott Carson, who runs the commercial side of Boeing, had confirmed that the first delivery would be in the spring of 2010.

The worrying things about the latest delay are that it comes so late in the process of development and that it relates to stresses where the wings join the fuselage. The stresses appeared in routine testing of wing flexibility. The wings are made in Japan and the fuselage comes mostly from Italy, to be pinned together in Seattle, thus the scope for confusion is immense. All new aircraft face delays as they become technically more complex and as manufacturing methods change in search of greater efficiency. Airbus’s A380 super-jumbo was severely delayed mainly because of wiring problems. At first Boeing seemed to think that it had a quick fix for its latest problem—which would have limited the aircraft’s ability to manoeuvre—but subsequently the firm decided to postpone test flying until a more comprehensive solution is found.