Early tomorrow morning, airlines that have bought the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, lead by Qantas which has the biggest order for up to 115 of the jets, will find out more about a marketing stunt gone wrong.

On 8 July, or 7-8-7 by the American convention, the prototype 787 was rolled out with grand ceremony from its assembly plant north of Seattle. But it turned out to be more of a mock-up than a functioning jet. The first 787 has been in pieces since soon after the band stop playing and the guests departed.

It was pulled apart to replace “temporary” fasteners holding large sections of the jet together, and to install missing wiring and other components supposed to be built into each section of the revolutionary “plastic fantastic” 300 passenger design before they become forever joined.

Well over half the structure in a 787 is made out of composite materials, thin sheets of reinforced carbon fibre glued together with resins and baked in giant ovens or autoclaves.

The weight savings claimed for the process, and other design innovations, have made the Dreamliner the biggest selling new airliner of all time with over 700 on order before the first test flight takes off, supposedly by the end of this month.

The truth about the status of the Dreamliner program should come out in a media briefing early tomorrow morning Australian time.

How late is the 787? Will the first flight be the end of this month as originally promised, or sometime in October or November? Even more critical to the airline buyers is the integrity of the original ambitious production schedule, with All Nippon getting the first next May and Qantas subsidiary Jetstar taking its first next August.

Qantas is likely to win no matter what. It made at least $160 million in penalties from Airbus for delays to its initial order for the A380 which were banked in its full year financials to June 30 last year.

The benefits of a late Dreamliner might turn out to be even bigger.