Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) signed a contract with Boeing of the United States on the 12th to supply a structure of the B787 Dreamliner aircraft.

This contract item is a component that goes into the nacelle where the B787 engine and wings are joined, and a total of 24 types of parts and assemblies will be manufactured and delivered to Boeing.

The project period is five years from January 2023, and is worth about 120 billion won.

The contract structure uses titanium, which is a rigid material, considering the weight of the engine. It plans to develop the first draft by incorprating the difficult-to-cut material processing know-how accumulated in the production of the existing B777 nacelle fitting and A350 landing gear parts.

The Boeing 787 Dreamliner is a 250-350-seat long-distance twin-engine aircraft, the first commercial aircraft to use carbon fibre composite material instead of aluminium to improve fuel efficiency.

Recently, KAI has been working hard to win orders for high value-added gas structures, such as machining difficult-to-cut materials like titanium.

In particular, it was evaluated that KAI's development capability and quality were recognised through a direct contract with Boeing, and additional orders were expected.

KAI Managing Director Park Kyung-eun emphasised, "We will do our best to satisfy customers through successful first product development and timely delivery. The commercial aircraft market, which has recently been stagnant due to the impact of Corona 19, is recovering, and KAI's airframe structure sales expected to increase in 2022," he explained.

Eric John, President of Boeing Korea, said, "We are very pleased to have signed this contract with KAI, which has established a long-standing partnership with Boeing. KAI has been selected as Boeing's Supplier of the Year on several occasions. Boeing is a partner that has maintained a cooperative relationship with Korea for the past 70 years, so we will do our best to strengthen Korea's aerospace capabilities," he said.