JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018 businesstraveller.comT
here’s something unique about a
brand-new aircraft. It’s not just the
fresh-out-of-the box smell, or the
sight of an interior as the designer
intended it, rather than following
the wear and tear of hundreds
of passengers. It’s not even the
specially selected crew accompanying you
on the inaugural f light, or the senior pilot
chosen to f ly it home. It’s the difference of
approach. Geographically, this is because
you are f lying directly from the factory,
whether it’s Boeing at Everett, Washington,
or North Charleston, South Carolina, or
Airbus at Toulouse or Hamburg. Mentally,
it’s because when you board an aircraft
already in service, your excitement will be
reserved for the destination; the aeroplane
is just a means of conveyance. Not so with
a delivery. The whole day, week or, in
the case of those who’ve planned this
event, months and years have been spent
looking forward to this moment, and when
the aircraft is new generation – a B787
Dreamliner, for instance – the excitement
goes up a level.
In part, this is because you have been
prepped to notice the difference. Both
Boeing’s Dreamliner, and Airbus’s answer
to it, the A350 XWB (Extra Wide Body),
of which more later, have been deliberately
positioned as New Generation. The capitalssuggest that they
have formed a category
alloftheirown,thattheyareastepchange
and represent a technological leap forward.
They are made in new ways from new
materials and promise a new experience for
those who f ly them or are f lown in them.
Following years of waiting and, let’s face
it, years of delays, anticipation about these
developments has grown and grown... and
now, finally, here they are.
Boeing’s first B787 was delivered to
All Nippon Airways (ANA) in 2011
(see The Dreamliner Story on p38) and,
since then, more than 600 have followed.
Boeing is increasing production in its two
B787 factories in the US to 14 per month.
Millions of passengers have already f lown
on them and a fair proportion may have
asked themselves whether they noticed the
“passenger enhancements” – the fresher →air, the larger windows, the quieter cabin,
the mood lighting, or the slightly increased
cabin pressure that supposedly lessens the
ill effects of long-haul travel and even jet
lag. It’s possible for f lyers to debate which
aircraft they prefer – the B787, A350 or the
double-decker A380. But for the majority
of airlines and passengers, the A350 and
the B787 have transformed long-haul
f lying. And as new variants arrive, new
routes have opened.
There’s a fair chance that you have already
f lown on the B787 Dreamliner. It has
become a significant player in many f leets,
including those of Air Canada, Air India,
American Airlines, ANA, British Airways,
Japan Airlines, LATAM Chile, Norwegian,
Qatar Airways and United. It is in common
use across many long-haul routes. In fact, it
was designed as a medium-sized, point-to-
point aircraft that doesn’t need to go via
hubs, and can operate cost-effectively on less
popular routes. So although British Airways
has 25 of them, as a regular f lyer between
our offices in London and Hong Kong, I
know BA will be using its older, and larger,
aircraft on routes such as these. (Although
that route is twice daily on either a B777-
300ER or an A380, so no complaints
there). Much the same principle applies to
Emirates, which relies principally on A380s
and B777-300ERs to ferry people to and
from its Dubai hub.The “hub-busting”
B787 enables airlines
to fly between new city
pairs economically36