Boeing’s stockpile of undelivered 787s has swelled in recent weeks as the company addresses quality issues determined to be more widespread than initially suspected. The Chicago airframer now holds 60 undelivered 787s, up from 40 two months ago and from 31 in late July. Those jets have made first flight but have not been delivered. The increasing stockpile comes as Boeing confirms it identified additional quality issues with 787 fuselages. Related inspections have slowed deliveries to a crawl. “We have identified other areas of the fuselage join… with the skin-flatness issue. This did not meet engineering specifications,” Boeing says. “Engineering analysis… [has] shown this not to be a safety-of-flight issue”. The Federal Aviation Administration agrees. “None of the issues raised recently are considered to be immediate safety concerns,” the agency says. “Nevertheless, the FAA takes these quality concerns seriously and continues to be involved in the discussions about any mitigations.” Several months ago, Boeing identified the skin-flatness issue at 787 “aft-body fuselage joins”, it says. Asked to elaborate, Boeing says it “discovered that some areas of the 787 circumferential fuselage join may not meet specified skin-flatness tolerances”. Those tolerances are “five one-thousandths of an inch – no wider than the width of a human hair”, it adds. The issues have led Boeing to inspect aircraft coming off its assembly lines in Everett and South Carolina, “to ensure these meet our highest quality standards”. The inspections have slowed deliveries, as has the coronavirus pandemic and related travel restrictions, Boeing has said. During a 4 December Credit Suisse conference, Boeing chief financial officer Greg Smith said inspections were “taking longer than we previously anticipated”. The airframer delivered no 787s in November, and has handed over just 17 of the jets since July, Boeing’s data shows. “We have strengthened our quality assurance programme over the last 12 months, and in doing so identified certain items on assembled 787 airplanes that we are taking time to inspect and correct as necessary,” Boeing tells. “These inspections will result in slowed deliveries for the remainder of the year, and we anticipate unwinding the inventory of undelivered airplanes throughout 2021.” The Seattle Times reported that the issue has also spurred inspections at 787 suppliers, including Wichita’s Spirit AeroSystems, Italy’s Leonardo and Japan’s Kawasaki. Those companies all make 787 fuselage sections. The Times’ report suggests the issue involves manufacturing of the composite sections. Boeing declines to confirm if suppliers are also inspecting components. “We are working with suppliers to assess this issue. And as explained, we are inspecting undelivered airplanes and will meet all requirements before delivery,” Boeing says.

The US Federal Aviation Administration is allowing pilots to receive Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine, so long as they wait 48h before returning to the cockpit. “The FAA has determined that pilots may receive the vaccine under the conditions of their FAA-issued airman medical certification,” the agency says on 12 December. “FAA air traffic controllers, who are subject to FAA medical clearance, may also receive the vaccine.” Last week, pilot union Air Line Pilots Association, International urged the FAA to fast-track its approval. The US Food & Drug Administration approved the vaccine with an emergency authorisation on 11 December. “To maintain the highest level of safety in the national airspace system, the agency will require aviation professionals with medical certifications or medical clearances to observe a period of 48h following the administration of this vaccine before conducting safety-sensitive aviation duties, such as flying or controlling air traffic,” the FAA adds. The 48h waiting period applies to both the first and second required doses of Pfizer’s vaccine. The FAA has required so-called “wait times” for pilots receiving immunisations to other diseases, such as those for tuberculosis and typhus, it says. “The agency’s medical professionals will continuously monitor the initial distribution of the novel vaccine and documented clinical results and will adjust these recommendations as needed,” adds the FAA.

New Zealand and Australia could announce a travel bubble in early 2021, but plans are tempered by fears of a possible Covid-19 resurgence. New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern says discussions are underway with Canberra, and barring “significant changes in the circumstances of either country,” a bubble will be announced for a re-launch of quarantine-free trans-Tasman air travel. One concern raised by Ardern is the possibility of a coronavirus resurgence in Australia. The two countries were on the verge of opening a travel bubble in mid-2020, but a Covid-19 outbreak in Australia’s Victoria state pre-empted these plans. “If there is an outbreak for instance in Australia – and it’s not a hypothetical, there have been several – we would need to make arrangements to have potentially thousands of New Zealanders brought back to New Zealand in numbers that we wouldn’t be able to facilitate necessarily in managed isolation,” says Ardern. “Making sure we have contingencies for how that would work safely is a key part in us finally being allowed to finalize these arrangements.” Other considerations include how passengers using the bubble arrangement will be segregated at airports, and how airlines will handle the logistics involved in a travel bubble. Separately, on 11 December Singapore decreed that passengers arriving from Hong Kong will now have to undergo 14 days in quarantine upon entering the city state owing to a resurgence of coronavirus there. Previously, Hong Kong arrivals had only to serve seven days at their place of residence. This followed news on 1 December that the long-planned Hong Kong-Singapore travel bubble, originally planned to start on 24 November, has been pushed back to 2021. Singapore, however, will allow visitors from Taiwan to enter Singapore without serving quarantine from 18 December. It cited Taiwan’s strong record managing coronavirus and the lack of local transmission on the island. Countries where Singapore has unilaterally lifted border restrictions are Australia, Brunei, mainland China, New Zealand, and Vietnam.