Time passes quickly when you are caught up in work, life and play. Weeks zip past at a frightening speed but then a funny thing happens… a bit of time elapses and, suddenly, life's events seem like ancient history.

If I stretch my memory back two and a bit years, I recall standing in Boeing's giant assembly hall in Seattle – the largest building in the world – and it seems like another lifetime. So much has changed in the world since then but, unfortunately for Boeing, the slow-motion button seems to have been pressed in that building because the plane I saw being assembled in May 2007 still has not been finished.

I was in Seattle to see the first fuselage section of Boeing's new 787 Dreamliner progress down the assembly line. After multiple delays, the plane is still stuck in the construction phase despite it being promised to All Nippon Airways in time for the Beijing Olympics, an event that also now feels like it occurred aeons ago.

Boeing's failure has been massive: the Dreamliner is probably the single largest industrial project in the world and there is a lot riding on its success, not least money. With more than 850 orders for an aircraft costing about $180 million (Dh661m)?at list prices, the project is worth more than $150 billion. Boeing cannot afford failure and the company said last week that it would write off a further $2.5bn development costs.

Boeing's inability to deliver the 787 on time has also had an impact on suppliers, who are sitting on large inventories and are burning through cash because they have no revenue coming in. It has also been devastating for airlines, who are desperate to get their hands on a plane that will cut their fuel bills by about 25 per cent. Given the perilous state of many carriers, this is a saving that is badly needed.

In some respects, the failure to deliver the Dreamliner on time is understandable because it is such a revolutionary aircraft. Airbus' A380 was the last major milestone in aviation and although it impressed with its enormous size, it was really just a bigger version of what we have seen and flown before. Construction and flight-testing were, therefore, known unknowns – as Donald Rumsfeld would say.

The 787, by contrast, is the first commercial aircraft to be predominately made of composite material – carbon fibre. Its fuselage is a barrel created in a single moulding rather than aluminium panels bolted to a frame.

Constructing such an aircraft – and testing it – was always going to be a challenge but Boeing was supremely confident that it could deliver. Jim McNerney, the Chief Executive, assured me personally on at least three occasions that Boeing would absolutely hit its deadlines but the company has now been forced to delay the 787 five times. McNerney's confidence seems arrogant and perhaps even misleading in hindsight and it is some relief that he now appears to have given up making bold predictions.

Boeing's latest forecast is that the 787 will have its first flight by the end of this year and delivery will be by the end of next year. The first two aircraft are largely ready to roll but there are defects that still need to be corrected - these test beds have been so heavily doctored in the past two years that they will be written off at the end of the process rather than sold.

Although I have some sympathy for the difficulties Boeing has faced in taking a revolutionary step forward in aircraft construction, the company has clearly made mistakes in executing the project.

For example, it decided to put the plane together in pre-fabricated parts – bolting huge fuselage sections together like a Lego model rather than painstakingly building from the floor up like most existing planes. Pre-fabrication works in other industries such as ship or building construction but oversight of the sub contractors who were making these sections has been poor and this has led to delays and quality-control issues, a fact that Boeing admits.

The weeks between now and the first flight of the 787 will, no doubt, zip by as they always do and we will soon by marvelling at this technical marvel. However, Boeing will also be hoping that as time passes, this sorry episode will slip into the recesses of our memory like ancient history.


- The writer is a Business Correspondent with The Times of London

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