For the third time, Boeing has announced a delay for its 787 jetliner. Crippled by a slow assembly line and mishaps, Boeing is pushing back delivery until early 2009. This is probably not good news for the those who have ordered the new jetliner. So far 800 orders have been place.

One of the first key milestones for the first plane - turning on its power - has been delayed until early in the second quarter, said Pat Shanahan, general manager of the 787 program. After that, it will take two to three months to run all the ground tests needed before the plane can fly.

Carson said the delay will prevent the company from meeting its ambitious goal of delivering 109 planes by the end of next year. He said the company will spend the next few months analyzing the status of the program before specifying how much its lowering that target.

Boeing has outsourced an unprecedented amount of the 787's design and production to manufacturers scattered across the globe. Workers in the company's widebody assembly plant north of Seattle have had to do a lot of so-called "traveled work" that suppliers were supposed to handle themselves. That problem has become more challenging than others the company has faced, including a shortage of small parts and the tiny fasteners that hold pieces of the plane together.

"We underestimated how long it would take to complete someone else's work," Shanahan said. "We designed our factory to be a lean operation. And the tools and the processes, the flow of material, the skill of the personnel are all tailored to perform last-stage high-level integration, check-out and test.

"We thought we could modify that production system and accommodate the traveled work from our suppliers, and we were wrong."