All That Matters

The Boeing 787 Dreamliner is the most recent major new aircraft design from Boeing, and the manufacturer’s most fuel-efficient plane. I have never had the pleasure of being passenger on one of these, but the design is certainly very modern. Composite materials are widely used in the aircraft, which is key to the plane’s fuel efficiency and explains the popularity of the plane. With more than 800 orders in the books, Boeing was also on a good track to break even commercially.

Then, on January 16 the FAA grounded all 787, following a number of technical problems. Earlier, the Japanese airlines ANA and JAL had already suspended all 787 flights, which was a significant signal because combined these two airlines operate almost half of the 787 delivered to date. Aside from a number of other technical issues such as a fuel leak, a key reason to ground the entire fleet has been two incidences where the back-up batteries overcharged and overheated such that there was the danger of fire on board. But how big a deal are these battery incidents? […]