London:
The Boeing 787 Dreamliner touched down on British soil on Sunday, tipping its wings to the crowd and building buzz at the Farnborough International Airshow, the industry's premier event.
It was the plane's first international test flight, and it landed in Britain directly from Seattle.
The arrival of the blue-and-white 787 - claimed to be "greener" than its rivals - underlined hopes that the two-year downturn in the aviation and defence industry is nearing a bottom.
The Dreamliner has been beset by delays.
But the President and CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, Jim Albaugh, said people would soon forget the delays, as the plane would be around for the next fifty years.
He said, "The Boeing company is always a company that innovates, it's always pushing technology, and maybe we did take a little more risk on this airplane than we should have.
And in hindsight, because we're late, maybe we did. But this is an airplane that's going to be around for the next 50 years, and I think people will forget that it was a little bit late.
What they'll remember is the efficiency of this airplane, the customer experience, and how it's going to change and revolutionise the way people fly."
The Dreamliner, is the biggest rival of the recently launched Airbus A380.(See pics-inside A380, the world's largest passenger aircraft)
It was the plane's first international test flight, and it landed in Britain directly from Seattle.
The arrival of the blue-and-white 787 - claimed to be "greener" than its rivals - underlined hopes that the two-year downturn in the aviation and defence industry is nearing a bottom.
The Dreamliner has been beset by delays.
But the President and CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, Jim Albaugh, said people would soon forget the delays, as the plane would be around for the next fifty years.
He said, "The Boeing company is always a company that innovates, it's always pushing technology, and maybe we did take a little more risk on this airplane than we should have.
And in hindsight, because we're late, maybe we did. But this is an airplane that's going to be around for the next 50 years, and I think people will forget that it was a little bit late.
What they'll remember is the efficiency of this airplane, the customer experience, and how it's going to change and revolutionise the way people fly."
The Dreamliner, is the biggest rival of the recently launched Airbus A380.(See pics-inside A380, the world's largest passenger aircraft)
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