United Airlines 787, ship 3904, 4:06pm departure Houston to LAX, Dec. 4, 2012
Houston Intercontinental Airport Gate C-14, 787 arrivals & departures gate there

As a former Eastern Airlines Sales/Marketing Management employee for the introduction as launch carrier of the Boeing 757 & as USA’s first airline to fly the Airbus A-300, I can attest to the statement in this story:

“Boeing 787 suffers third mishap in as many days”
“Asian customers rallied behind the U.S. planemaker, however, saying such teething troubles were not uncommon on new planes and confirming they had no plans to scale back or cancel orders for the aircraft, which has a list price of $207 million,” quoting NBC News.
Read more

I was also living in Miami in December 29, 1972 when Eastern Airlines Lockheed 1011 flight 401 crashed in a controlled descent in the Everglades 4 months after being the launch carrier for this great airplane and living in San Francisco as an Eastern Airlines Marketing/Sales employee when American Airlines 191, a DC-10 crashed on take-off from Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport bound for San Francisco May 25, 1979, a crash thought to doom the then 7-year old DC-10 program.

The 787 is a great airplane and will be as venerable as the Boeing 727, IMHO!

– UPDATE: January 27, 2013
“MIT Professor: Battery Fix Could Ground 787 Until 2014”
By Peter Cohan in Forbes.
Read more

“Boeing Risks $5 Billion in Revenue on 787 Probes Outcome
“Investors support for Boeing and the 787 remains tied to the idea that the faults are in the lithium-ion battery packs, not a fundamental defect in the planemakers most technologically advanced jet ever, according to Leake, the BB&T analyst,” by Thomas Black & Susanna Ray in Bloomberg News.
Read more