Aviation analyst Richard Aboulafia of the Teal Group expressed skepticism Saturday that Boeing would choose a greenfield site — a completely new location with no experience of airplane manufacturing. “That’s just really a bad idea,” said Aboulafia. “You are adding multiple layers of risk both in terms of workforce and infrastructure.”

“There’s no economic argument that I can think of for leaving Puget Sound,” said Richard Aboulafia, an aerospace analyst with Teal Group, a Fairfax, Va.-based consultant. The 777X is hugely important to Boeing’s future in the commercial airplane industry, where it faces competition now from Airbus with Russia and China looking to get more market share in the next decade, experts say.

After formally unveiling the plane on the opening day of the Dubai Air Show, Boeing announced airline orders for the 777-8X and 777-9X worth nearly $100 billion at list price. After Boeing’s experience with the 787, which saw three years of delay before the first delivery, the company’s margin of error for delivering the 777X is “between zero and none,” Aboulafia said. Everett and Puget Sound offer the least production risk, noting its trained workforce, developed infrastructure and state support, and none of that is going to change in three months, he said.

“Boeing “has modern, competitive, second-to-none jets hobbled by dubious management”, says Richard Aboulafia, an analyst at Teal Group.”

Aviation experts expressed surprise at the announcement of a planned lawsuit, saying it may be premature before the National Transportation Safety Board completes its investigation, which could take more than a year. “This is one of the more unusual things I’ve heard,” said Richard Aboulafia, an aerospace analyst with Teal Group Corp., a Virginia research firm. “You don’t hear of much success with cases like these, particularly involving an aircraft with such a stellar safety record.”

Electrical problems and fuel leaks have plagued the new Boeing plane model recently. On Monday, an empty Japan Airlines 787 in Boston caught fire. On Tuesday, a fuel leak forced a different Japan Airlines 787 to cancel takeoff and return to the gate before ultimately completing its trip to Tokyo. "We're getting to a tipping point, where they go from needing to rectify problems to doing major damage control to the image of the company and the plane," said Richard Aboulafia, a defense and aerospace analyst with Teal Group, a consulting firm based in Fairfax, Va. "While they delivered a large and unexpected number of 787s last year, it's possible that they should have instead focused on identifying glitches and flaws, rather than pushing ahead with volume production."