Are These The Worst Boeing 787 Dreamliners Ever Built?

If we examine Boeing’s order book, it’s very clear that its 787 Dreamliner is a big hit among airlines. The US planemaker’s deliveries report on its website indicates that it has produced over 1000 787s to date. And despite an early grounding, and a few recent delivery issues, more continue to be ordered and produced. But did you know about the segment of Dreamliners known as the “terrible teens”? This is a group of early-production 787s that required significant modifications, including heavy structural reinforcement. The end result is that the jets are much heavier than the Dreamliners that came after. Thus, due to their weight and resulting lack of efficiency, these could be considered the worst 787s Boeing has ever built. In this video, we’ll look a little deeper into these jets and where they are currently flying in 2023.

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[Sacto]

In short, many of the "Terrible Teens" got sold to Ethiopian Airlines for a major discount. They proved useful for flights to many parts of Asia from Addis Ababa, where the extreme range of the "good" 787-8's was not needed.

[ricahrdb]

Very interesting. I do remember a bit of the reporting on the problems Boeing had early on with the manufacturing of the 787. It was clear that they had to do a lot of rework on the early build aircraft. Never knew that it resulted in less performance for those aircraft. Fortunately the owners got a nice bargain.

[NBLCGBLN]

Gosh, I love this channel.

Everyday, something new, interesting and explained simply with a soothing voice.

Thank you again team Simple Flying!

[chandrachurniyogi]

have to admit the B787-9 & B787-10 are great looking twin engined wide body jets in recent years . . .

[whatdafok.h]

I flew in the "terrible teen" of air austral 😮
Pamandzi ( Mayotte ) to Paris CDG ( France ) great experience around 4340 nautical miles

[shanetr]

This brings back memories. I’ve worked on most of these lines for Boeing. The work was tough, the times were tough but I had a great time to work with. I worked on the wings and fuel systems mostly.

[dadcelo]

Great video! Really makes you wonder why the A330NEO isn’t selling as much. Bigger wing, proved design, commonality, initial price.

[dougmate]

lines 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 12, and 13 I worked on. Line 8 is the mexican airforce one, that is for sale. Changing that aircraft from flight test to charter was a massive pain. There are those who worked on these particular aircraft will not fly on them. they do not feel safe flying them.

[BPiperDude]

I'm really surprised by a lot of the comments here not know about this. This is NOT a unique occurrence and happens on every aircraft. First deliveries are usually out of spec and need modifications. It is one of the drawbacks of early adoption by carriers. This happened on the A350 as well as noted in 2008 when the planes first come out.

[simonsv]

* I checked at flightradar24 and ET-ATG is now painted in Star Alliance Livery.

[nurrizadjatmiko]

Never heard of terrible teens or terrible Dreamliners group. Thanks for explaining that👍.

[SRT-fvwr]

Looks like you had to go back a ways to dig up more Boeing dirt.
Good point though..
A handful of unwanted 787's, vs.1700 wanted ones airlines can't get enough of..
Great reporting as usual !!

[harshasaianumalla]

Very Interesting Information. Really your work on the channel is so good

[rezaalan]

Woah, can't imagine if Lion Air purchasing those 787.

[markiteight]

I did most of my flight training at KPAE during the time many of these aircraft were parked on runway 11-29. I had heard that they were early production units that were built before a change to the design was made, and that they were waiting for a gap in production to go back through the line to have the revisions applied. It sounds like that was partially true, but there's more to the story than what I originally heard.

There were also some partially completed, engineless 747-8s parked among the 787s on runway 11-29. They had giant concrete blocks hanging from their wings to simulate the weight of the engines. Any idea what the story is with these aircraft? When I returned to my flight school in 2017 all the aircraft stored on 11-29 had disappeared, but the runway remained closed. The rumor at the time was that the weight of these aircraft exerted in one spot for several years had damaged the runway and it was unknown if it would ever be repaired and brought back to operation. As of this writing it remains closed and doesn't even appear on KPAE's entry in the AFD.

[matthewtan]

flown on ET ATG in 2019, in star alliance livery, didnt notice anyt different

[ameerali.ouarda]

The worst 787 experience I had was with Qatar in economy. It was dreadful. Extremely uncomfortable and horrendous legroom with boxes on the floor.

[wilburfinnigan]

Well it appears that even the terrible teens though heavier are still more efficient than any other aircraft, part of the development of new technology, and proven by the fact most are flying today and proof Boeing did improve the efficiency of the 787's, It is still the most efficient plane flying !!!

[christopherhennessey]

So were these heavier Boeing 787 sold at a steep discount?

[andrewlonghofer]

Private owner registering #20 in the Cayman Islands? Color me shocked!