What's holding back Boeing's 787 Dreamliner?

After debuting in 2011, Boeing Co.'s 787 Dreamliner has become popular among the world's airlines. But heightened scrutiny both inside and outside the company in recent years has revealed a number of production flaws and largely prevented it from delivering new Dreamliner jets for nearly two years. The plane's largely carbon composite frame reduced fuel costs, helping make the airplane economical to connect more of the world's cities with direct flights. The Dreamliner also marked a shift for Boeing: It farmed out much of the work to a global network of suppliers, making it the first of the company's planes to be designed largely by other companies. After overcoming initial challenges -- including getting suppliers up to speed, and two battery fires that led to a three-month grounding -- Boeing has delivered more than 1,000 of the jets, with firm orders for about 400 more. The Dreamliner was a hit. Airlines launched new routes like Miami to Warsaw, Dublin to Shenzhen and Oakland to Oslo. The plane's interior boasted a better cabin climate to reduce jet lag, big overhead bins and large windows that darken with the touch of a button rather than a pull-down shade. But in 2019, problems emerged with how Boeing was producing the Dreamliner. As Boeing examined its 787 production, certain defects came into focus: improperly sized shims that fill tiny gaps between sections of the airplane body, known as the fuselage, and variations on skin flatness in certain sections of the interior of the fuselage. Such production issues can be detected after planes enter service and fixed during maintenance. Story has more.<br/>