As anybody reading this blog knows, the Boeing 787 Dreamliner has been grounded worldwide for the past seven weeks as a result of an incident of an uncontained battery fire on a Japan Airlines flight. As of this writing, most airlines affected have signaled their distrust in a quick solution by canceling flights out May and beyond. Boeing proposed a containment fix to the problem in late February, but, other than the FAA, various regulatory agencies around the world have yet to clear the plane to fly.
While Washington was the inaugural destination for international service for Ethiopian, as of January 16, when the 787 was grounded, Dulles did not have any 787 service. Ethiopian has been flying a 777-200LR since mid-December, so there is no immediate impact to the airport or to its routes. However, United operates a hub out of Dulles and could potentially open routes out of Dulles, and the fleet grounding could push back the introduction of these new routes.
Overall, the grounding of the 787 will have a much greater affect on mid-sized airports and airlines than it will have on a major international airport such as Washington Dulles. Airports such as San Jose International and San Diego International had recently inaugurated 787 service on All Nippon Airways (ANA) and Japan Airlines respectively to Tokyo and were relying heavily on the traffic and revenue the 787 would bring. Airlines such as United were relying on a strong performance by the 787 on routes such as Denver to Tokyo and Houston to Lagos, but no routes out of Dulles have been announced. Other airlines, LOT Polish in particular, will be especially suffering after counting on the 787 to save them on its Warsaw to Chicago route. Larger airports with flights by foreign airlines such as Chicago O'Hare with LOT Polish, Los Angeles International with LAN Chile, and Washington Dulles with Ethiopian will have little impact, especially considering the flights have been replaced with comparable aircraft.
