Aircraft

Boeing 787 Dreamliner makes first passenger flight

Boeing 787 Dreamliner makes first passenger flight
The 787 Dreamliner takes off on its first passenger flight (Photo: ANA)
The 787 Dreamliner takes off on its first passenger flight (Photo: ANA)
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ANA celebrates first passenger flight of the 787 Dreamliner (Photo: ANA)
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ANA celebrates first passenger flight of the 787 Dreamliner (Photo: ANA)
ANA celebrates first passenger flight of the 787 Dreamliner (Photo: ANA)
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ANA celebrates first passenger flight of the 787 Dreamliner (Photo: ANA)
ANA celebrates first passenger flight of the 787 Dreamliner (Photo: ANA)
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ANA celebrates first passenger flight of the 787 Dreamliner (Photo: ANA)
Inside the 787 Dreamliner (Photo: ANA)
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Inside the 787 Dreamliner (Photo: ANA)
The 787 Dreamliner takes off on its first passenger flight (Photo: ANA)
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The 787 Dreamliner takes off on its first passenger flight (Photo: ANA)
The 787 Dreamliner takes off on its first passenger flight (Photo: ANA)
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The 787 Dreamliner takes off on its first passenger flight (Photo: ANA)
All Nippon Airways has flown 240 passengers on a four and a half hour charter from Tokyo to Hong Kong (Photo: ANA)
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All Nippon Airways has flown 240 passengers on a four and a half hour charter from Tokyo to Hong Kong (Photo: ANA)
ANA celebrates first passenger flight of the 787 Dreamliner (Photo: ANA)
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ANA celebrates first passenger flight of the 787 Dreamliner (Photo: ANA)
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The 787 Dreamliner has entered commercial service. The mid-size airliner's first passenger-carrying outing took place earlier today when Boeing's launch customer All Nippon Airways flew 240 passengers on a four and a half hour charter flight from Tokyo to Hong Kong. Two hour-long "domestic excursion flights" out of Tokyo are planned for October 28 and 29 before regular domestic flights commence on November 1.

Journalists, special guests and representatives from ANA and Boeing joined Chief Executive and President of ANA, Shinichiro Ito aboard today's flight. Business Class seats were also sold in a charity auction with one passenger shelling out US$30,000 for a ticket.

The carbon fiber composite 787 offers passengers increased overhead luggage space, 30 percent larger auto-dimming windows, power, USB and iPod connections, touch panel LCD screens and more comfortable air pressure.

The Dreamliner also promises significant fuel savings of around 20 percent, which ANA says will eventually help it save JPY10 billion (US$130m) a year.

The 264 seat plane used for the maiden commercial flight is the first of 55 Dreamliner's that All Nippon Airways has on order. Two have been delivered so far and ANA says it expects 20 to have landed by the end of FY2012.

All Nippon Airways' first domestic flights will take place on the Haneda-Okayama and Haneda-Hiroshima routes from next week, while the first international flight between Haneda and Beijing is scheduled for December. Long-haul international flights between Haneda and Frankfurt will get underway in January 2012.

View gallery - 8 images
2 comments
2 comments
Fretting Freddy the Ferret pressing the Fret
No word on how much the airplane cost to produce? What a costly investment it must have been, being made of carbon fiber composite.
Chris Hann
Must have been? In other words you know about as much about the cost of carbon fiber as I know about the cost of communion wine?
I suppose the iPod interface is nice, but the 20% fuel savings will be going to the airline and the windows make little difference. Blah. I hope the engineers finally got all the structural issues solved.