Boeing rolls out first commercial airplane not built in Puget Sound area

Boeing did something on Friday that it has never done
before. It rolled out a commercial airplane built outside
of Puget Sound.

The first 787 made in South Carolina debuted on Friday
with much pomp and circumstance. Gov. Nikki Haley, U.S.
Rep. Lindsey Graham and Boeing executives gathered for the
occasion. As smoke poured from the doors of the company’s
final assembly plant, the white plane was pulled out onto
the tarmac.

A lot of people here said Boeing couldn’t train an
unskilled workforce in Charleston to pull this off.

Should local Boeing workers be concerned the company has
proved those naysayers wrong?

Union machinists and others claimed the company couldn’t
build a plane without the highly-skilled and best trained
workforce found here in Puget Sound. Some claimed they’d
never fly on a Boeing plane built somewhere else because
it wouldn’t be safe. They attacked the potential workers
in South Carolina as unskilled and unable to do the work.

But those workers and Boeing are proving them wrong after
building a new production plant and rolling out the first
787, all in about 2 and a half years.

Boeing’s Jack Jones, the general manager of the South
Carolina plant, said that skepticism was expected.

“When this type of work had never been done outside Puget
Sound, there’s always going to be a question of whether or
not you’re capable of doing it,” Jones said. “What you’re
dealing with is 75 years of experience. So when we say
‘Yes, we can do this. We’re confident we can do this.’ I
can certainly understand why they might question it, but
it was done the right way and the results speak for
themselves.”

Jones said the company was able to pull this off by
immersing local workers in a training program that was
nearly three times longer than normal. They used computer
simulations to teach workers how to put planes together,
and the so-called unskilled South Carolina workforce was
able to get the job done.

And now that Boeing has done it in Charleston and it has a
blueprint for doing it, what’s to stop the company from
putting another plant somewhere else?

Local aviation analyst Scott Hamilton said it should
remind Puget Sound workers of one thing.

“Nobody is indispensable,” he said. “If Boeing can do it
in South Carolina, they can do it in Texas. Clearly
Boeing could, if it chose, create another assembly site.”

Hamilton said Boeing already has plans for expanding in
South Carolina.

“Boeing is actually acquiring 200 more acres down there by
Charleston, and that certainly could open the way for
another line of another 7-series airplane to go down there
over time.”

But Hamilton doesn’t believe future potential Boeing
production plants elsewhere would take work away from
Boeing workers in Puget Sound.

The company has committed to building the 737 MAX in
Renton and the Dreamliner in Everett. There’s more than
15 years worth of work in this region just to make it
through the backlog of current orders.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.