Ever wondered how your plane was put together, or what size factory you need to build a jumbo jet? Mark Caswell takes a trip to Seattle to find out.
When I was invited to visit Seattle, I’ll admit that I was under the impression that retracing Frasier Crane’s footsteps and climbing Space Needle would be more interesting than wandering around an aircraft-manufacturing plant. How wrong I was – visiting Boeing’s factory is not only fascinating in itself, but also essential for anyone who wants to understand the city’s 20th-century success.
Boeing is indelibly etched into the history of the Pacific Northwest region, ever since 1966 when the company chose Everett (around 30 miles north of Seattle) as the location of its assembly plant for the newly-announced Boeing 747 aircraft.
Even before the first 747 rolled out of the hangar in 1968, twice as large as any plane before it, the factory was taking visitors on tours, and today more than 130,000 people flock there every year. In 2005, the Future of Flight Aviation Centre was added to the complex (see Take the Tour, right), adding further insight into the marvel of commercial jet production.
Over the years, the facility has expanded to house the assembly lines for the 767, 777, and forthcoming 787 aircraft, and it remains the largest building in the world by volume, pipping Airbus’s facility in Toulouse, France into second place. The 13.3 million sqm building is split over six huge hangars, with a 25,000-strong workforce operating 26 cranes and over 100 forklift trucks, while the largest of the building’s six hangar doors measures a whopping 25 metres by 107 metres.
So enormous are the operations that the factory requires its own fire department, police force, medical centre, electrical substation and water-treatment plant, along with five coffee shops, a theatre, and a branch of BECU (the Boeing Employees’ Credit Union). The factory also houses the largest moving production line in the world, with entire planes creeping along at an almost imperceptible 1.8 inches per minute.
The idea of keeping the aircraft on the move is as much to do with keeping things ticking over as it is to moving the plane between constructions areas, as Chuck Cadena, 777 programme communications manager explained. “The moving line creates a sense of urgency, which in turn drives out waste. Door to door, a 777 takes around 12 weeks to build, with just 18 days of this being on the assembly line.”
Cadena also talked me through the near 24-hour construction process at the factory, where teams with names like “Flight Control” and “Cargo Rats” work in shifts to churn out aircraft to order. At its busiest, the plant has been known to deliver seven 777 aircraft per month, with a pre-flight area capable of accommodating 26 finished jets.
My visit coincided with the delivery of the 50th 777 aircraft to Air France (see Fifty Not Out, above right). The logistics of assembling a commercial aircraft the size of a 777 are mind-boggling, with a total of three million parts needing to be ordered, tracked and distributed to the correct assembly point at the right time. And advancements in business and first class seating have brought their challenges as well, with larger, heavier fully-flat products causing assembly-line headaches. As Cadena put it: “Imagine trying to get dozens of beds up the stairs of your house, and you’ll have some idea of the problems faced by the Boeing engineers.”
(The solution in this case is to build the fuselage in two parts, crane in the seats through the hole, then literally fuse the plane together once everything’s inside.)
This sort of challenge is no doubt what has been holding up the development of Boeing’s great hope, the 787 Dreamliner (the first one is now due to be delivered to ANA in late 2009). I didn’t see the 787 in production, but parked outside the hangar was one of the strangest planes I’ve ever laid eyes on – a bulbous, beached-whale of an aircraft that looked like it would have trouble getting down the runway, let alone up in the air.
Yet the “Dreamlifter” is playing an integral part in the development of the 787. Effectively a 747 with an extension, the Dreamlifter has three times the capacity of the original aircraft, and is large enough to transport the fuselage of the 787 to the assembly line at Everett. This has reduced the transport time of the 787’s wings (built in Japan) from 30 days by water and land to just eight hours by air.
Back to the 777, and it was time to unveil the Air France plane. The hangar doors whirred and we stepped out onto the tarmac where it was parked ready for the “ferry flight”. In these days of heightened security it’s rare that you get the chance to walk around a plane to appreciate its sheer size – the engines of the 777 are large enough to sit six people across (although given the temperature inside can climb to over 1,000 degrees fahrenheit I wouldn’t recommend it).
Our captain for the journey back to Paris was Gilles Bordes-Pages, who in between flying duties somehow finds time to be Air France’s vice-president corporate development, marketing and network. Taxiing to the factory’s runway, there was a feeling akin to a cruise ship’s maiden voyage, with crowds of Boeing staff lining the factory roof to see us off. Just a few hundred feet off the ground, the plane suddenly dipped first to the right, then to the left, before settling back on a horizontal flight path. “Just waving goodbye to Boeing,” announced Gilles. Frasier Crane, eat your heart out…
Take the tour
Boeing offers tours of both the assembly factory and its Future of Flight Centre, a US$23 million project designed to give visitors “a glimpse into the future of commercial aviation”. As well as watching some of the world’s largest jets being put together, guests can take control of a XJ5 flight simulator, design and test their own jet of the future, try out the next generation of IFE systems, and step onboard a mock-up fuselage of the 787 Dreamliner. Tours run daily 9am-3pm, and cost US$15. Visit futureofflight.org for more information.
Fifty not out
The Boeing 777 has become the mainstay of many airlines’ long-haul operations, with a total of 1,080 orders for the aircraft up to May 2008. Air France was the launch customer for the 777-300ER model (the world’s largest long-range twin-engine jetliner), and the carrier recently boosted its fleet of 777s to 50 (comprising 25 of the 777-200ERs and the same number of 777-300ERs). The 777 now forms the core of Air France’s long-haul plans – the average age of its 777-300 fleet is currently just 2.3 years, while the carrier’s ageing 747 jumbos are due to be phased out by 2012.
Aside from its greater fuel efficiency, the 777 also includes interior technology designed to enhance the flying experience, as Klaus Brauer, director of passenger satisfaction and revenue for Boeing, explains: “The interior architecture of the 777, including the positioning of the lighting and the use of pivot cabin bins, means that, while the 747 is actually a wider aircraft, customers generally prefer the 777 and many believe it to be a larger plane.”
This visual impression, along with the fact that the economy seats on Air France’s latest 777 are made from a single-beam construction (which has increased the amount of leg-room for passengers) also helps to justify the carrier’s decision to increase the economy configuration on the plane from nine across to ten across on the new aircraft.
Other changes include Version 3 of the carrier’s L’Espace Affaires business class product, which features a two-metre lie-flat bed (up from 1.85m on Version 2), angled at just five degrees from horizontal (as opposed to ten degrees on Version 2). The cabin’s decor has also been revamped, with the traditional blue colour making way for a smart taupe design.
But the biggest change will come when Air France introduces its premium economy product next year (see our exclusive online news piece, April 30). Codenamed C38, due to the pitch in inches of the new product, it will be fitted in a 2-4-2 fixed-shell configuration across the 777 fleet, with four rows of economy seating making way for three of the new C38 offering.
Air France has yet to announce whether it will opt for the 787 or the A350 as its next generation of long-haul aircraft, but whichever it goes for KLM will follow suit, as the combined carriers gradually harmonise their product offerings while retaining their own branding. Air France is also expected to accept delivery of its first A380 superjumbos next year.
For more information visit airfrance.co.uk, boeing.com.
Fact box
Air France flies six times weekly to Seattle from London via Paris, with business class fares from £882 (airfrance.co.uk). Other direct options include fellow Skyteam members Northwest and KLM, which have recently inaugurated daily flights from Heathrow, and twice daily flights with BA, also from Heathrow.
