It’s already been delayed at least once, and now the first flight of the 787 is delayed until at least 3 months, to the end of the 2nd quarter.

In a statement, Boeing Commercial Airplanes chief executive Scott Carson says “we continue to be challenged by start-up issues in our factory and in our extended global supply chain”.

Well, duh.

It was originally supposed to have a first flight in August of 2007, and now they are saying may or June of 2008.

Of interest is the fact that the press, particularly the American press is not running around saying, “the sky is falling”, as they did with the roughly 18 month delay on the A380.

Part of the reason is that it’s easier for the press to find some Eurocrat tied into Airbus to wring his hands publicly, not surprising given its origins as a state sponsored enterprise, and part of it, at least in the US is a cultural bias against Airbus because of its state origins (kind of necessary, everything in Europe had gotten the %$#@ bombed out of it 25 years prior).