Air India will be compensated for Dreamliner delay: Boeing

Mumbai: US aircraft manufacturer Boeing has said that it would compensate Air India for the delay in the delivery of Dreamliner 787 aircraft to the Indian carrier.

"We will compensate Air India for the delay in the delivery of Dreamliners," Boeing senior vice-president Dinesh Keskar told reporters on the sidelines of an aviation summit.

In 2005, Air India had placed orders for 68 aircraft with Boeing, at a cost of $11.6 billion.
Of the 68 aircraft, 27 are 787 Dreamliners, the first of which were to be delivered by this year-end.

Boeing recently announced that deliveries of the Dreamliner would be pushed back further.

"There have been supply-chain strains," Keskar said. He said that the first Dreamliner would now be delivered to Air India in 2009, though a date is yet to be fixed.

Boeing's order book for India is for 140 planes, at a list price of $20 billion. Deliveries, according to schedule, will be completed by 2013, Keskar said.