Ray Connor Said Costs Will Begin To Decline in 2016

One of Boeing's top executives says that the cost of producing the Dreamliner should begin to decline in 2016 as the company begins to push more airplanes off the assembly line.

Speaking at the Morgan Stanley Laguna Conference in California, Boeing Commercial Airplanes CEO Ray Connor said that as the production rate increases to 12 airplanes per month in 2016, the production costs will see a corresponding drop.

The Post and Courier newspaper reports that Boeing has projected $25 billion in deferred production costs ... that's the gap between what it costs to build the planes and what Boeing can make by selling them ... before it starts to break even on the 787s.

Boeing currently produces 10 Dreamliners a month ... three in South Carolina and seven in Washington State. The company has orders for 1,048 of the airplanes on the books, and Conner said at the Morgan Stanley conference that he does not see any reason that demand should decline. "We see demand for 36,000 airplanes over the next 20 years," he said.

He also said that he finds the demand for the single-aisle 737 MAX to be "amazing."

(Image from file)

FMI: www.boeing.com