Friday, April 26, 2013

More progress on the 787 return to flight

As the 8 airlines get closer to resuming their 787 service I've updated the list below since new information has been coming out:

ANA - early June (after completing test flights and pilot training)
Air India - around mid May
Ethiopian - April 27
JAL - early June (after completing test flights and pilot training)
LAN - unknown
LOT Polish Airlines - June 5
Qatar Airways - end of April
United Airlines - May 31st but may be able to restart earlier

Today the amended Airworthiness Directive was posted in the Federal Register thus making the FAA's certification of the battery fix official.  Any US registered 787 can now fly with the battery fix. Already Japan and Europe has followed the FAA's lead on this as has approved of Boeing's fix though I also expect that India, Ethiopia, Chile and Qatar will all follow suit fairly quickly.  The first set of 787s should be completed by now.  LOT Polish Airlines is (or already has) ferrying its 787 stranded in Chicago to Addis Ababa where a Boeing team is there to install the battery fix on the 4 aircraft belonging to Ethiopian.  Word is that LOT's second aircraft, which is currently in Warsaw, will also be flown to Ethiopia for the fix.  Qatar 787 that was stranded at London Heathrow was ferried back to Doha for the fix and one United jet at LA was ferried to San Antonio, Tx. for the repairs.

Given Japan's approval of Boeing's fix, ANA announced that starting this Sunday, May 28th, their 787s will fly about 230 test flights in order to re-train their team of 787 pilots as well as reassure their passengers that the airplane is safe to fly one.  They plan on resuming regular passenger service in June.  ANA is also looking to see a resumption of 787 deliveries with ZA512 (LN 82, JA818A) being the first 787 to be delivered since the grounding in January. It can be delivered as early as late next week but ANA pilots still have to fly the customer flights on this airplane. 

Outside of this one pending delivery, I can see LOT Polish, Air India, JAL and even China Southern and Hainan taking deliveries in May. In June we can see deliveries to Thomson, Qatar, JAL, ANA and ILFC being made.  I do expect that Boeing will now be aggressive in their production flight test program as they need to clear the inventory sitting at Everett and Charleston.

Lastly, a reader sent me this link to a video from the BBC detailing the 787 battery fix work that is going on in Ethiopia.


 






22 comments:

Andrew Munsell said...

Ethiopian has resumed: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/27/us-boeing-dreamliner-ethiopianairlines-idUSBRE93Q02A20130427

-Andrew

Dave C said...

United has a bird in the sky right now - N27901 is performing flight UA6880

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Anonymous said...

Did you notice that FlightAware no longer lists the B778 in it's aircraft type list? If you search for all 787 flights you get nothing.

I have not ben able to track many of these new flights.

Anonymous said...

Did you notice that FlightAware no longer lists the B778 as an aircraft type?

If you search for all 787 flights you get nothing.

Uresh said...

There's no such aircraft as a 778. I can track 788 though.

MRodezno said...

I've been searching for B788 in FlightAware and got the same result as thepaulmason. I guess they won't list the Dreamliner until more airlines get it off the ground

agincourt said...

Yes, it is B788 and there was one flight today BOE 380.

TurtleLuv said...

Uresh, here's an idea. You should add a column in your "delivered 787" list marking which already delivered frames have been repaired and are confirmed back in service.

Uresh said...

That's going to be difficult to do.

Trapperpk said...

The flightaware tracks by flight number or airline rather than airline type such as 788. However once found by flight number it displays the 788 number.

Piotrek_ said...

LN21 JA823J finished change incorporation/re-work.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/moonm/8694326397/in/photostream

HK Expat said...

Hi Uresh - are you sure about LN 124 entering FAL on May 19th? Latest trend indicates May 14th.

Also makes sense that LN 124 enter FAL right after LN 123 and LN 125 enter FAL just before LN 126 to allow enough time for the line to move at a rate that makes sense.

One way to try to predict it is to look at the fact that currently a new frame enters the 40-26 FAL every 12 days. Therefore if LN 123 enters on May 13th, then LN 127 should enter on May 25th.

Then we could interpolate LN 124 on May 14th, LN 125 on May 24th and LN 126 also on May 24th (allowing for time to switch the 40-24 FAL to 787-9 production).

Excellent work as always.

A

Andrew Munsell said...

Photos from the return to service flight and the Boeing blog

Piotrek_ said...

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/BOE317
G-TUIA in the air.

Anonymous said...

I know it's B788. The feature for tracking all instances of B788 flights on FlightAware used to work fine and it now works only occasionally.

The B788 type no longer appears on the list of available types.

I have found that if you don't know the Flight Number (e.g. BOE 512) you can't find it.

Uresh said...

Flightaware must be having issues then.

agincourt said...

Qatar have a 788 in the air today

See http://flightaware.com/live/flight/QTR119

Andrew Munsell said...

I found out why it does not recognize 788 as the aircraft type. They changed it so now it is B788.

-Andrew

TShep said...

A Boston Airliner Spotters Meetup group member who works at KBOS gave us a heads up and several other members confirmed that JAL's 787 JA829J (the "fire" bird or maybe we should call it "Phoenix") taxied out for an engine run today. It was reportedly quite smokey. The aircraft is now parked back in the spot where it has been stored since January. However, we are betting that it will be ferrying out pretty soon. We are not sure if it's received the battery fix yet. Anyone here know?

TShep said...

JAL JA829J left Boston this morning. Not sure if it's gone for good or is just out for a test flight.

TShep said...

JAL JA829J is back at KBOS after a test flight.