The Boeing Co has closed out the 757 commercial jet program with the last of the 1,050 jets to roll off the assembly line. \nT-shirts showing a 757 with the words, "Celebrate the Legacy," were worn by thousands of past and present Boeing workers on Thursday at a ceremony marking the end of two decades of production of the 200-passenger plane in this Seattle suburb. \n"A big chunk of my life has been spent on this program," said Clyde Brown, who worked on the 757 line from the start more than 22 years ago to the end. "That plane has been good to me." \nThe last 757 is scheduled for delivery to Shanghai Airlines in April. \nBrown and many other workers will now work on another plane that figured in the demise of the 757 -- the newest models of the 737, also made in Renton. No layoffs from the end of 757 production are planned. \nAlan Mulally, head of the company's commercial airplane division, said Boeing plans to "crank up" 737 production but gave no details. \nBoeing, based in Chicago, announced in July that after cutting more than 27,000 jobs in three years, about 3,000 workers will be hired in the Puget Sound region by Dec. 31. \nMany are in technical and engineering jobs for the 7E7 program in Everett and a military program to equip the 737 airframe as a Navy submarine-hunting aircraft. \nAny new hires for 737 production were factored into Boeing's employment forecast in July, a spokeswoman said. \nMulally was an engineer on the original design team for the 757 program, which was headed by Philip Condit, who went on to become chief executive of Boeing but resigned earlier this year in an uproar over the use of dubious methods to win government contracts. \nAt the ceremony Mulally noted that all but 20 of the 757s remain in service worldwide. \n"It has one of the great safety records of any plane in the world," he said. \nOne unique feature for Boeing was simultaneous design of the single-aisle 757 and the widebody 767, which is assembled in Everett. \nDespite differences in size and range, they were designed with common flight decks so pilots trained on one could fly the other with little additional training, resulting in big cost savings for airlines. \nSales of 757s reached a peak of 99 planes in 1992 but declined to 45 by 2000, then plummeted in the airline industry slump that followed the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. \nTwo of the three planes seized by the terrorists were 757s. One hit the Pentagon and the other crashed into a field in Pennsylvania after passengers stormed the cockpit. \nFactors in the end of the line for the 757 include development of bigger, more economical and longer-range 737 models, the 7E7 Dreamliner that Boeing plans to begin building in 2006 and competition from Airbus SAS. \nStill, Mulally said predicted that Boeing would be providing product support for the 757 for "the next 30 to 40 years."
PHOTO: EPA
POOR INTERNAL CONTROLS: Insurance Bureau Director-General Shih Chiung-hwa said the company is expected to get back on track while its chairman is suspended The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday fined Shin Kong Life Insurance Co (新光人壽) NT$27.6 million (US$939,415) for a reckless investment that endangered its solvency, and suspended its chairman Eugene Wu (吳東進) for poor supervision. The penalty is the second-highest in a single case after Nan Shan Life Insurance Co (南山人壽) was fined NT$30 million in September last year and its chairman Du Ying-tzyong (杜英宗) suspended for two years, the commission said. In three rounds of special and regular examinations conducted since last year, the commission found that Shin Kong Life had given too much power to an asset and liability management committee
Continental AG, which makes control units for Daimler AG cars, cannot pursue antitrust claims against a group of patent owners, including Qualcomm Inc, which are seeking royalties on telecommunications technology, a federal judge in Texas ruled. Avanci LLC, a licensing pool formed by Qualcomm, Nokia Oyj, Sharp Corp and other owners of patents on technology standards, is not breaching antitrust laws when it negotiates license agreements with automakers rather than the component makers, Barbara Lynn, chief district judge for the Northern District of Texas, said in dismissing the suit in a decision posted on Friday. The licensing group charges US$15 per vehicle
Sony Corp has cut its estimated Play Station 5 (PS5) production for this fiscal year by 4 million units, down to about 11 million, following production issues with its custom-designed system-on-chip (SOC) for the new console, people familiar with the matter said. The Tokyo-based electronics giant in July boosted orders with suppliers in anticipation of heightened demand for gaming in the holiday season and beyond, as people spend more time at home due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the company has come up against manufacturing issues, such as production yields as low as 50 percent for its SOC, which have cut into
HEAVY INVESTMENT: Moody’s affirmed the firm’s ‘Aa3’ rating with a ‘stable’ outlook due to its leading position in the industry and ability to match customer requirements Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) revenue this year is expected to increase about 21 percent to NT$1.29 trillion (US$44.01 billion) from NT$1.07 trillion last year, driven by strong demand for advanced 5-nanometer and 7-nanometer chips mainly used in smartphones and high-performance computing devices, a Moody’s Investors Service report on Wednesday said. TSMC’s rate of revenue growth next year is to increase to 7.5 percent, the ratings agency said. The company, which supplies 5-nanometer chips for Apple Inc’s new iPad series, has introduced the advanced chips ahead of its competitors and gained a significant share of the market for the foundry industry’s
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