This past week, dubbed Dreamliner week by yours truly, has seen four new airlines "re-inaugurate" 787 services, two airlines receive their first 787, confirmation that all 50 Dreamliners delivered before the grounding have been refitted with the improved battery system, and to top it all off, the first pictures surfacing of Boeing's first 787-9 in final assembly at their production facility in Everett. The Dreamliner flooded aviation news sites in the latter half of last week while Boeing and it's flashy new toy closed one tumultuous chapter and moved on to a new one with less drama and hopefully for Boeing, more cash.
On Saturday June 1st, two airlines put their 787s into commercial service. After more than a month of flight tests, Japanese carrier Japan Airlines put their birds back into commercial service, flying within Asia and to Boston and San Diego. Though ANA decided to push one inaugural flight forward a week, they also put the rest of their 787s back into the air on service in Asia and to San Jose and Frankfurt. LOT Polish also resumed service this weekend, sending their Dreamliner from Warsaw to New York. LAN, however, had originally scheduled its service resumption to also be this weekend, but have pushed back the date another month to July 1st, leaving them to be the last pre-grounding airline still grounded.
Friday, before three different airlines restarted their silent Dreamliner engines, two airlines started their engines and took off for the first time. British carrier Thomson Airways and China Southern Airlines both left Paine Field as brand new owners of their own Dreamliners. And China Southern will be starting commercial flights this week, flying from Guangzhou to Beijing starting Friday June 6th. Thomson on the other hand is not starting flights until late July.
All this comes after Boeing has confirmed that all 50 aircraft delivered before the grounding have been refitted with the brand new battery system. Photos have also surfaced of the first 787-9 in final assembly, with its stretched fuselage and "9" painted on the tail clearly visible. Besides the 787-9, fully painted -8s have coming out of the paint shop non-stop. So far, British Airways, Norwegian, and Hinian tails have all been spotted on the flight line in Seattle, waiting to be delivered. Norwegian and Aeromexico have both announced their inaugural routes. Paine Field should be very busy this summer.
