It's obviously widely known that the 787 has had it's had its fair share of teething problems (I know one person who has flown on a 787, and the flight had to turn back after an hour due to technical issues), but I wonder is the aircraft as bad as we are led to believe (that's how it seems to me) or is it a case of the media jumping on every issue, with the aircraft as it is considered newsworthy. Does anyone know of any statistics that may be available to compare the reliability of the 787 against other airliners.
Scud,
I'm not certain the 787 has had any more issues than any other commercial aircraft when first introduced. There's always the 'teething process' in which defects are discovered in virtually any product from automobiles to whatever begins with a Z. Engineers are human and there are bound to be oversights on their part. I've been a small aircraft mechanic for the last thirty years (never wanted to work for the airlines) and have seen far fewer defects than the automotive industry has had in the same period of time.
Also, here in America, we have a dieing news media that will publish almost anything that will scare the people. That surely does not help the situation because they are thriving on pure sensationalism.