I Messed Up... I'm a little surprised no one picked up on this. At least I didn't see a response to it, but I messed up when I said, Boeing's 787 had its biggest sales in 2007 and 2009. Got thinking about this and realized 2009 wasn't actually five years ago yet.
When I checked the article's graph (this is in a full page piece entitled "Boeing Chief Steers Clear of Spotlight", in the February 22, edition of the Wall St Journal), it indicates the 787 had its best sales in 2007. That year it sold a whopping 390 units. So, I had that much right, but 2009 was actually the worst year for 787 sales with the graph indicating what appears to be a negative 60 units.
2005 was the aircraft's second best year with about 230 units.
The overall point I was trying to make still seems valid with Boeing selling a mere (what appears to be about) zero units (flat sales) in 2010, 10 units in 2011, a small negative in 2012, and about 50 units in 2013 (would imagine that's so far this year).
So, the 787 has experienced meager sales at best in the past five years.
Of course, the plane has a fairly large backlog from those early years with an overall total of just over 800 units with about 50 units having been delivered so far this year.
Prior to the recent battery problems which the company now says have been resolved, Boeing was in the process of ramping up production of the 787 from four units per month to ten units per month.
How much these recent problems will hurt sales remains to be seen. Videos of the Japan Airlines 787 sitting on the tarmac in New York with smoke coming out of the cockpit probably didn't help.