Boeing designed the jet to fly 330 minutes — five-and-a-half hours — from the nearest airport at any point on its routes, a feature that would allow extended flights over water or deserted regions like the North Pole. That held tremendous appeal for airlines, which often must stay within three hours of emergency landing spots, and Boeing estimated that 450 new routes would be created.
But Boeing is struggling to get past the 787’s recent smoke and fire episodes with its lithium-ion batteries that have led to the grounding of all 50 planes delivered so far. And with investigators in the United States and Japan still looking for the cause of those problems, it could be months before federal regulators would feel confident enough in Boeing’s redesign of the batteries to approve extending 787 flights to ultralong distances from the jetliner’s current three-hour limit.
That could dilute its appeal to some airlines and further raise the costs of the program for Boeing, which already was unlikely to make a profit on any 787s for at least two years. The company could lose orders and have to pay penalties to carriers if the 787 failed to meet its performance targets.
“It is crucially important that the powers that be get convinced that Boeing can contain and exhaust a fire, and that the fix really worked,” said Hans J. Weber, the president of Tecop International, an aviation consulting firm.
He said that even after the jets start flying again, Boeing and the airlines would have to monitor the activity inside the batteries for tens of thousands of flight hours before experts would feel sure enough that the fixes would prevent a fire or that the jet’s range could be safely expanded.
Federal Aviation Administration officials said it was premature to speculate about what they might decide about the plane’s range. Boeing said Friday that it had not changed its goal to win approval for the longer flights.
The 787 fleet was grounded in January after the battery in one jet ignited in Boston and another battery began smoldering on a flight in Japan.
Boeing and other companies that rely on the volatile lithium-ion batteries, including hybrid carmakers, worry about public perceptions of the batteries and want to get the planes back up in the air as soon as possible. The F.A.A. is expected to approve a plan next week to start testing the possible fixes.
Mr. Weber said that several studies had suggested that jetliners have an average of 18 to 20 minutes to land if a fire erupts without special containment in a cargo or equipment bay. And it could take 20 minutes more to get all the passengers and crew members off the plane, he said.
As a result, George W. Hamlin, an aviation consultant, said he believed that to justify even its current ability to fly up to three hours from the nearest airport, Boeing would have to demonstrate that its new battery case could contain a fire for at least 180 minutes. Otherwise, he said, the plane’s appeal could diminish.
Having a fire in a plane is a situation all pilots dread. (They are trained to find the nearest landing spot.) But containing a potential fire could be an acceptable answer for the F.A.A., Mr. Weber and Mr. Hamlin said.
The agency already has many requirements to offset other safety concerns on planes. For instance, Mr. Weber said, the F.A.A. accepts the risk of one engine failing in flight by requiring that all twin-engine jets can fly on the remaining one.
And while the current rule that 787s must stay within three hours of airports is sufficient for most North American, trans-Atlantic and even many flights across the Pacific Ocean, several Middle Eastern, Australian and Asian airlines are counting on the extension to gain more flexibility in their routes and maximize the fuel savings from the plane.
“The part of the raison d’être in the design of the 787 is being able to connect virtually anywhere,” Mr. Hamlin said.
Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/09/business/setback-to-boeings-hopes-for-longer-range-for-787.html?partner=rss&emc=rss