Japan Airlines Opens New Routes With 787 Deliveries

Japan Airlines Opens New Routes With 787 Deliveries:

Photo: Boeing

Japan Airlines is now the second airline in the world to operate Boeing’s new 787 Dreamliner. The airline took delivery of two of the new composite airplanes this week and plans to quickly put them into service on routes the airliner was designed to fly: non-stop international trips not served by the bigger long-haul aircraft.
One of the first places to benefit from the new airplane will be Boston, MA. The city currently doesn’t have any non-stop flights to Japan. Beginning April 22, Japan Airlines will begin the first U.S. 787 route with non-stop flights between Boston and Tokyo. Later this year JAL will also initiate the first non-stop Japanese routes out of San Diego with 787 flights to Tokyo.
Japan’s All Nippon Airways took delivery of the first 787s and currently operates them domestically as well as as on flights to Europe. ANA is planning 787 service to both Seattle and San Jose in the next 12 months.
The deliveries of the new airplanes bring a dose of good news for Boeing’s new jet which is years behind schedule and continues to have teething issues common to most new airplanes. Earlier in the year the plane maker announced fixes needed for a problem with the fuselage. But beyond small problems with the airplane, one of the bigger issues is how the company will ramp up deliveries to airlines forced to change plans because of production delays.
“It’s going to be a difficult process” says aviation analyst Richard Aboulafia of the Teal Group. But he adds without another next generation airliner on the market, Boeing has a little room to breathe. “The best thing you can say is that they don’t have anybody nibbling at their heels,” says Aboulafia, “The [Airbus] A350 is late as well.”
Japan Airlines was forced to push back plans a month for new routes to Moscow, Delhi, and Beijing because of the belated delivery of its 787s, and Air India is looking for hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation. The company is currently building airplanes at a rate of 3.5 per month and hopes to be up to five per month by the end of the year.
At Paine Field, the airport adjacent to the Boeing factory where the 787s are assembled, an unused runway and just about every other open space is currently serving as a parking lot for Dreamliners as they await delivery. There are a few dozen airplanes awaiting changes that were discovered in flight testing after these examples rolled off of the assembly line.
Boeing currently has more than 870 firm orders for the Dreamliner, but just 7 are in service today. JAL is expecting two more 787s next month and Boeing’s chief of commercial aircraft Jim Albaugh has said he expects the company to deliver between 35 and 43 this year.