Business / Technology

Seattle Times aerospace reporter Dominic Gates covers top industry events to bring you the latest news, highlighting how it impacts Boeing and its competitors.

I’m writing this in advance of leaving Seattle Thursday for Paris to cover the 50th Paris Air Show, the world’s oldest and largest aviation show.

Highlights this year are expected to include Boeing’s launch of its largest Dreamliner model, the 787-10, and a possible fly-by of Airbus’s all-new, all-composite twinjet, the A350.

I’ll use this blog to deliver the news daily, starting in earnest on Sunday, the eve of the Show. That day, I’ll participate in a media roundtable in central Paris with Boeing Commercial Airplanes chief Ray Conner, then later attend a reception hosted by Washington state to attract aerospace business.

I’ve written two stories ahead of time, based on pre-Paris briefings and tours at Boeing. Sunday’s paper will have a preview of what’s ahead. But first, Friday’s paper delivers good news from Renton:

Boeing’s newly reconfigured second 737 assembly line in Renton.   Photo: Ellen Banner, Seattle Times

From inside the  single-aisle 737 plant, I give details on how Boeing is managing the ramp up to two jets per day even as it re-configures the factory to build another assembly line for the 737 MAX.
Boeing plans to hire a few hundred people in Renton by year end, in contrast with all the bad employments news we’ve been hearing recently from other parts of Boeing in the Puget Sound region: layoffs and work moving elsewhere. Senior executive Pat Shanahan addresses what’s going on.

This will be my tenth Air Show, alternating between Farnborough (London) and Paris each year since 2004. And I’m getting there with admirable neutrality. I’m flying British Airways on a Boeing 747 to London then an Airbus A319 to Paris.

Watch this space through Friday, June 21 for multiple daily dispatches from Paris.