Boeing 787 news

[sn26567]

The Cockpit Voice Recorder and Flight Data Recorder could also be combined in one unit.
Don't know if it is in the B787.

Yes, indeed, they are combined in one single unit in the 787.

[RoMax]

Some more details on the planned deliveries (first deliveries are marked):

- August 14: ET-AOQ (Ethiopian Airlines)
- August 20: JA803A (ANA) this is the first 787 production aircraft, left FAL years ago to be stored
- August 22: A7-BCB (Qatar Airways)
- August 27: CC-BBA (LAN Airlines Chile)
- August 28: JA814A (ANA)
- August 30: JA813A (ANA)
- August 30: JA828J (JAL)

Air India remains at: "TBD"...

And a first glance at September (a lot of it can change of course, same goes for August):

- September 18: ET-AOR (Ethiopian Airlines)
- September 18: N20904 (United Airlines)
- September 20: JA824J (JAL)
- September 25: JA815A (ANA)
- September 27: A7-BCD (Qatar Airways)
- September 27: B-2727 (China Southern)

[RoMax]

Et voila, the first 787 for Ethiopian Airlines was delivered today, as planned (important to mention, as it's quite new for the program that a delivery happens as planned, tough that's even not true because they are still years behind shedule, but I suppose you understand what I mean )

[sn26567]

And this is also the first delivery to a non-Japanese airline. Now the 787 truly becomes international.

At the delivery ceremony, Boeing announced that the stretched 787-10 would not be available before the end of the decade, as they see no hurry to develop the plane now.

Ethiopian's 787 will be named "Africa First" and will initially be deployed on African routes after having made an inaugural tour in a large number of ET destinations (including FIH, but not BRU...).


Photo Boeing

[earthman]

Does Boeing charge customers parking fees if they don't come to pick up their planes soon enough after they are finished?

I can already imagine 787s standing with parking tickets behind the window wipers, and a big yellow wheel clamp on the MLG...

[RoMax]

Can you already guess it? Air India had two deliveries planned for Friday/Saterday (fly-away would have some more days between it). But yea...it's AI right?! Indeed delivery will not take place (possibly not before the end of this month). This time it's the Ministry of Finance that blocks the deal...tough both the ministry of civil aviation and the government approved the deal and the AI management wants the aircraft badly.

So it seems LAN and Qatar will be number 4 of 5 to take their first 787, if Boeing hurries up United may even before Air India... And then imagine that several months ago it was a big question wether JAL or AI would be first to take the first GEnX powered 787. Well...JAL proved to be 'a little' faster in getting things straight.

And to respond on earthman: yes Boeing can ask fees if airlines don't pick up their aircraft in time. And Air India even should have experience with it. Some years ago they had several 777's waiting for delivery for months (like the 787's now). I don't know the details, but according to insiders these fees are no small money.
Tough I don't know if Boeing even dares to speak about these fees in the case of Air India (because of the whole history with the 787 compensation/delivery fiasco).

[RoMax]

One of the biggest customers of the 787 sliced 35 orders for the 787-9, Qantas. They had 50 Dreamliners on order, the 15 of the 787-8 version planned for Jetstar will be delivered as planned. But the 35 bigger 787's planned for Qantas itself (deliveries should have started in 2014) were cancelled. According to the CEO of Qantas times has changed since they placed the order, and they are not in the position anymore to do such a huge investment (list price is 8,5 billion dollar, but of course they got a lot of discounts)

The ceo of Qantas says the 787 is a great airplane and it will have a great future in Qantas' fleet, but not as planned as the investment was said to be too big (Qantas lost 205 million Euro last financial year).
Qantas agreed with Boeing over purchase rights for tens of 787's, but deliveries will not be before 2016.

After ANA (with 55 orders), Qantas was on a shared second place with United with in total 50 orders for the 787.

[RoMax]

I just almost fell out of my chair...apparently the first 787 was delivered to Air India today and fly away should be monday If that's true that's a HUGE step. 3 of AI's 787's were waiting for delivery since the beginning of the summer, they were just standing in Charleston (were moved out of Everett because they took op too much space while they had no work to be done anymore). After AI approved the compensation plan (something that took very long) it was the governments time to do annoying, that took another few months before they agreed with everything (there were several occasions when they agreed with something and were cleared for delivery when another ministry called for investigation).

So apparently VT-ANH was pulled to the delivery center of Charleston today and Air India officialy took delivery of the aircraft, some ceremonies are planned for the weekend, fly away on Monday (tough I wouldn't be suprised they find something that's not fine for them minutes before the aircraft leaves the US ).

[RoMax]

Some updates:

So VT-ANH seems to be contractually delivered, official ceremony will be on Monday after which fly away will occure Monday evening (arrival in India on Tuesday). The second 787 for Air India may be delivered next Friday as Air India says they'll take one 787/week (3 787's for AI are ready for delivery).

Other deliveries for this month (things can change of course):

ZA536 (LN 68, CC-BBA) to LAN on Aug. 27
ZA461 (LN 58, A7-BCB) to Qatar Airways on Aug. 30
ZA118 (LN 67, JA813A) to ANA on Aug. 30
ZA182 (LN 70, JA828J) to Japan Airlines on Aug. 30 (this airplane has had only one test flight)
ZA233 (LN 29, VT-AND) to Air India on Aug. 31

So far (if AI included) there are 18 delivered 787's (4 to JAL, 12 to ANA, 1 to Ethiopian, 1 to Air India).

And the updated list for September (this may include another 1-2 787('s) for Air India, but date unknown):

ZA119 (LN 69, JA814A) to ANA on Sept. 12
ZA263 (LN 71, ET-AOR) to Ethiopian on Sept. 18 (hasn't taken its B-1 yet)
ZA288 (LN 53, N20904) to United on Sept. 18
ZA178 (LN 27, JA824J) to Japan Airlines on Sept. 20 (hasn't taken its B-1 yet)
ZA463 (LN 64, A7-BCL) to Qatar Airways on Sept. 25 (hasn't taken its B-1 yet)
ZA135 (LN 66, JA815A) to ANA on Sept. 25 (hasn't taken its B-1 yet)
ZA382 (LN 43, B-2727) to China Southern on Sept. 27 (hasn't taken its B-1 yet)

So during the comming week and September 4 other airlines should take delivery of their first 787, some more new airlines will follow later this year (LOT, Hainan,...).

Also important to note, United announced the initial shedule of their 787's:

Starting in October with domestic services out of Houston to United hubs. Then, as from 4 December the first international route will be launched...to Amsterdam (daily on Houston-AMS):

Code: Select all

UA058 IAH1545 – 0815+1AMS 788 D
UA059 AMS1000 – 1345IAH 788 D

On January 3 daily Los Angeles-Tokyo Narita will start, 7 January is the start date for 5 weekly Houston-Lagos, 4 February start of daily Houston-LHR, Houston-Los Angeles will also get sheduled 787 service as from February, on March 30th daily Los Angeles-Shanghai will start and Denver-Tokyo Narita daily as from March 31 and Houston-Denver sheduled service as from April.

Denver-Tokyo is like Tokyo-Boston by JAL, a new route that's made possible by the 787. Previous aircraft either didn't have the range, or the capacity or the capability to fly out of Denver with the right payload.

United expects 4 787's by December, 5 by February 2013 and a 6th in March 2013. Their configuration on the 787 is 36 in business, 63 in economy plus and 120 in economy.

For full shedules of the mentionned routes:
http://airlineroute.net/2012/08/22/ua-787update1/

[tsv]

August finished, 4 deliveries, 4000 excuses. What will Sep bring?

[sn26567]

A funny remark by Jon Ostrower (from the Wall Street Journal): The first two US airlines to order the 787 don't exist any more: Northwest and Continental !

United has just received its first Dreamliner (ordered by Continental thus) and is the first US airline to introduce the aircraft in its fleet. More: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=48298

[RoMax]

So far 24 787's were delivered (of which 21 this year):
- Air India: 2
- ANA: 14
- Ethiopian Airlines: 1
- Japan Airlines: 5
- LAN Airlines: 1
- United Airlines: 1

Potentially 4 more can be delivered this week, but even if only 1-2 can be delivered before the end of the month, this proved to be a good month in 787 deliveries (despite the GEnX problems).

With 21-25 787's being delivered in the first 3 quarters of this year, Boeing is 100% on course to meet their expected 30-42 787 deliveries in 2012. If not too many things go wrong the current shedule even allows for up to 50 deliveries this year (as many new 787's come out of FAL, these can be delivered within weeks, and meanwhile also older 787's are finishing rework at higher speed than before). But this is very optimistic, I think we can be happy with 35-45 deliveries this year.

Edit: Forgot to note that ANA placed an additional order for 11 B787-9 aircraft, bringing their total orders to 36 for the B787-8 and 30 for the B787-9.

[RoMax]

Apperently another 787 was delivered to JAL yesterday, so 25 deliveries so far (of which 22 this year), 20 of these are based in Japan:

- Air India: 2
- ANA: 14
- Ethiopian Airlines: 1
- Japan Airlines: 6
- LAN Airlines: 1
- United Airlines: 1

[sn26567]

Today Air India received its third 787, the first Dreamliner that was assembled in Charlerston, South Carolina.

[sn26567]

Today Boeing delivered the third 787 of Air India, the very first Dreamliner assembled in Charleston, South Carolina.

viewtopic.php?f=31&t=48360

[sn26567]

ANA says that its Boeing 787 saves 21% of fuel on international routes compared to the Boeing 767. Boeing projected 20%.

Source: Airline Route

[earthman]

I'm sure that all depends on the routes.

[RoMax]

I'm sure that all depends on the routes.

21% is the average of the international flights they operate with the 787.

ANA said this before (tough they didn't have so much data as they have now), even the heavy 787's show better results than Boeing's predictions they based on their flight tests. That's especially encouraging for the 787-9 where Boeing achieved to save a lot of weight (parts that proved to be overdesigned with the 787-8 and some new technologies to improve aerodynamics). Many of these savings will eventually also improve the 787-8's weight further (note that Boeing is still slightly above the planned weight for the 787, but they're comming close the the planned design weight).
The weight savings Boeing achieves on the 787-9 is also good news for the planned 787-10. Eventually the 787-9 and 787-10 will probably become the most popular variants of the 787-family. The amount of airlines that already showed their interest for the 787-10 is tremendous (including Lufthansa, ILFC, ALC and Singapore Airlines/Scoot that 'hinted' at wanting to be launch customer). Basicly because it's an A330-300 but with the efficiency of the 787-family. Because it's a simpel stretch of the 787-9 the range goes down, but the operational costs per pax drop down as well and that while the 787-9 will already be a highly efficient aircraft.

Boeing is still planning to offer the 787-10 for sale this year. To fully focus on the development of the 787-family and the 737MAX, they decided to push the 777X back to the early 2020's (clearly they are not that afraid of the A350-1000).

[earthman]

I'm sure that all depends on the routes.

21% is the average of the international flights they operate with the 787.

What I meant is, Boeing claimed 20% as some general number. It is bound to be different for different airlines, due to the way they use the plane, specific routes they fly, etc. I would not be surprised if some airlines turns up that gets less than 20%.

Also, 20% of what? Fuel cost per seat/mile?

[RoMax]

What I meant is, Boeing claimed 20% as some general number. It is bound to be different for different airlines, due to the way they use the plane, specific routes they fly, etc. I would not be surprised if some airlines turns up that gets less than 20%.

Yeay of course, ANA sees these results, other airlines will see other things. Some time ago it was already stated that JAL's results were slightly better than ANA's, mainly due to the GE engines which are slightly more efficient (tough that also depends on MANY factors of course).