businesstraveller.comB787
IN NUMBERSTHE DREAMLINER STORYThe first whispers of what would become the B787 began in early 2003 when
Boeing gave the go-ahead for a “new super-efficient, mid-sized airplane”: then
christened the Boeing 7E7 (the “E” stood for “efficiency, economics, environmental
performance, exceptional comfort and convenience, and e-enabled systems”).
Th ik did ’t t h th h B787 it was.
s to formally offer the plane to airline
4, and start delivering in 2008. It took
s longer than that, but the first test
ok place from Paine Field in Everett,
hington State, on December 15, 2009,
oncluded with touchdown at Boeing
in nearby Seattle. The first delivery to
rline was to All Nippon Airways (ANA)
ptember 2011. The larger B787-9 was
ered to launch customer Air New
nd in June 2014, while the larger-
787-10 will go to launch customer
pore Airlines this year.
of the original B787-8 Dreamliner
est planes was donated to the
m of Flight in Seattle. Known as
it was the third B787-8 produced,
cumnavigated the world several times
nd 2012 during a “Dream Tour” that
ed the B787 to more than 68,000
n 23 countries.It will come as no surprise that, for the
airlines, the reason for buying these aircraft
is because they are economical to run, not
because we like large windows on a plane.
The beauty of the B787 is its ability to
f ly long distances, cheaply. And it can
even carry a decent amount of freight in
the hold, helping to provide extra revenue
for the route. The result is that airlines
make more money on routes for which the
aircraft has the appropriate number of seats,
and also have more freedom to experiment
with routes that previously weren’t
commercially viable.
Boeing positioned the aircraft as a “hub-
buster”, or more prosaically, as a catalyst for
“network fragmentation”, meaning that the
B787 enables airlines to f ly between new
city pairs economically. Air India’s chairman
and managing director, Rajiv Bansal, is
clear that it has enabled the airline “to open
numerous new and non-stop routes”. ForBritish Airways a notable success has been
London to Austin, while for an airline like
United it was San Francisco to Chengdu
(BA had a B787 on its Chengdu route,
but this was dropped in 2017). Qantas
intends to f ly one of its new B787-9 aircraft
non-stop between London and Perth in
March, following the aircraft’s debut on
its Melbourne to Los Angeles route in
December, 2017.
Ironically, although the B787 has
certainly served this purpose for dozens of
airlines, it has also allowed new entrants into
the market – most noticeably Norwegian- to offer competition across the Atlantic
at prices that previously would not have
been possible. Fellow budget airline Scoot,
a Singapore Airlines subsidiary, has also
recently begun expanding into long haul
with f lights to Athens, Honolulu and,
later this year, Berlin using the aircraft.
Meanwhile, a carrier such as Cathay Pacific,
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Half of the “primary structure” including
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The improvement in fuel economy on
the B787 compared to older planesMach 0.85
Typical cruising speed of the B787210-242
Passenger capacity of the
B787-8 Dreamliner250-290
Passenger capacity of the
B787-9 Dreamliner300-330
Passenger capacity of the
B787-10 Dreamliner15,400km
Range of the B787-9 Dreamliner11,910km
Range of the biggest
B787-10 Dreamliner38