Dutch airline KLM celebrates its 100th anniversary this year, and commemorations include a special livery for its first B787-10 series aircraft.
Celebrations will be held at Amsterdam Schiphol tomorrow (June 29) and the highlight was to be the arrival of the first of KLM’s nine B787-10 aircraft which it has on order. These celebrations will still go ahead.
The B787 is question is ready and waiting to depart Boeing’s plant at Charleston South Carolina for tomorrow’s celebrations at Schiphol.
However fans waiting to see the special livery will be disappointed.
At the last minute KLM has revealed the delivery flight has been postponed. This will doubtless put something of a damper on tomorrow’s celebrations which will still take place.
Today’s De Telegraaf reports that KLM’s CEO Pieter Elbers never flew to Charleston as planned yesterday.
The reason for the delay is a mystery with neither Boeing nor KLM providing a precise reason.
Boeing is reported as saying that the delay has nothing to do with the problems with its B737 Max model.
An exact delivery date for the B787-10 cannot be confirmed but it’s expected to be sometime next week.
All KLM will say officially is “The new aircraft was initially planned to land at Schiphol on Saturday morning June 29 but is now expected in the coming days. It often happens that the delivery process of an aircraft is slightly delayed due to the complexity and administrative issues.”
KLM already operates a number of B787s. It will become the first European airline to operate the larger B787-10 version.
The carrier is set to launch a new business class seat on the B787-10, designed by Japanese firm Jamco.
The celebration of KLM’s 100th anniversary will doubtless reopen the debate as to whether it or British Airways can claim to be the world’s oldest airline.
