Mumbai: US aircraft manufacturer Boeing has said that it would compensate Air India for the delay in the delivery of Dreamliner 787 aircraft to the Indian carrier.

"We will compensate Air India for the delay in the delivery of Dreamliners," Boeing senior vice-president Dinesh Keskar told reporters on the sidelines of an aviation summit.

In 2005, Air India had placed orders for 68 aircraft with Boeing, at a cost of $11.6 billion.
Of the 68 aircraft, 27 are 787 Dreamliners, the first of which were to be delivered by this year-end.

Boeing recently announced that deliveries of the Dreamliner would be pushed back further.

"There have been supply-chain strains," Keskar said. He said that the first Dreamliner would now be delivered to Air India in 2009, though a date is yet to be fixed.

Boeing's order book for India is for 140 planes, at a list price of $20 billion. Deliveries, according to schedule, will be completed by 2013, Keskar said.

Besides Air India, private carriers Jet Airways and SpiceJet have also placed orders with Boeing. While Jet has 53 aircraft on order, of which 10 are Dreamliners, SpiceJet has 30 aircraft on order.

According to Keskar, Boeing would also deliver the first of the three VVIP aircraft to the Indian government in April.

He also mentioned that the ground-breaking ceremony of the maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) facility at Nagpur, which Boeing is setting up along with Air India, is expected to take place by the middle of this year.

The third partner for the MRO is yet to be finalised, Keskar said.