Boeing keeps mum on 787 output boost as wide-body jet sales slow

Boeing just set a new production record for its 787 Dreamliner. But the US planemaker is keeping mum, for now, on plans to speed output to an even faster pace as demand for wide-body aircraft shows signs of waning. The US planemaker has yet to decide when to boost the production rate to 14 Dreamliners a month, even with the popular carbon-fiber aircraft sold out through the end of the decade, CEO Dennis Muilenburg said Thursday at the Bernstein Strategic Decisions Conference in New York. That call depends on several pending sales campaigns for the plane, he said. Boeing has been planning the next step up in 787 output for several years as Airbus Group SE prepares its own production increase for wide-body aircraft. Faster deliveries of Boeing’s largest and most profitable Dreamliner models would help the company absorb some of the $29b in deferred production costs accumulated during the aircraft’s troubled start. “Fourteen-a-month is still where we’re heading,” Muilenburg said. “And we haven’t precisely defined the timing on that yet because it’s dependent on” the skyline, an aerospace term for planned monthly deliveries.<br/>