Japan Airlines becomes the first to fly the B787 to India

While Air India is preparing to receive its Boeing 787 Dreamliners from Boeing, which should be finally arriving somewhere in May 2012, Japan Airlines seems to have stolen the thunder from Air India by being the first airline to operate the 787 services to India. The picture you see above is from JAL’s 787 first approach at Delhi’s Airport.

Japan Airlines recently received its Boeing 787 planes, and used the first one to start a Boston-Tokyo service which is a new route, with effect from May 1, 2012, they’ve also pressed this plane into service on the Tokyo-Delhi-Tokyo route, making JAL the first operator to bring the 787 planes to India commercially. There is good reason to believe this makes economic sense, since JAL spokesperson reveal that the earlier operation was on 70% capacity of a Boeing 777, which fits perfectly well for the size of a 787 to fly the route (with fuel savings being an added advantage).

Air India is preparing to deploy its B787’s on various routes from Delhi and Mumbai (including to Frankfurt, and a proposed service to Sydney and Melbourne). But seems like making advance announcements is out of fashion at Air India and hence no one has a clue as to which date will the plane be deployed on which route.

I’d recently visited the Boeing 787 Static Display plane from Air India at Indian Aviation 2012, and my view is that Air India will not make an experience out of this unique opportunity to fly the 787s. You can check out the cabins of the new plane here, which already look quite ‘tired’.

Next up, Lufthansa is bringing the 747-8 to India after taking it to Washington DC. Glee. Now waiting for the oldish A380 to land on Indian shores.

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(HT to DELAPPROACH for the pictures)

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