Boeing 787 Dreamliner Delayed Until 2010

Do you remember in Casino Royale when the evil Le Chiffre plots to blow up an airplane in Miami to cause an airline's stock to crash? Well, Boeing's recent announcement that it will delay deliveries of its Boeing 787 Dreamliner is by no means comparable with a terrorist plot, but it did send the airline's stock falling by 3.384 percent, to $40.27 a share, on the New York Stock Exchange yesterday. Shares of the company have ranged between $36.17 and $90.38 over the past 52 weeks.

Several companies have put in orders for the 787, but they will just have to wait. Again. For the fourth time. Boeing said yesterday that it's delaying the schedule for the Dreamliner program by six months because of the damaging strike by machinists and a slew of production problems.

"Our industry team has made progress with structural testing, systems hardware qualification, and production, but we must adjust our schedule for these two unexpected disruptions," Boeing Commercial Airplanes President and CEO Scott Carson said in a statement.

The 787 is Boeing's first new model in more than a decade. It's a midsize, wide-body, twin-engine jet airliner that can carry between 210 and 330 passengers. It will be the first major airliner to use composite materials instead of aluminum for the majority of its construction. The company says it will use 20 percent less fuel than other Boeing airplanes.