Boeing B787-9 – do the Dreamliner woes continue?

What is going on at Boeing in Seattle? Abu Dhabi’s Etihad Airways won’t be unveiling its new B787-9 Dreamliner on December 27, says airlineroute.net. Consequently, it won’t be putting the new aircraft into passenger service to Dusseldorf from the same day, or to Mumbai and Washington (Dulles) from January 1, as it had previously announced. Latest GDS system data now also indicates that low-cost carrier (LCC) Scoot will postpone service introduction of the B787-9 from January 1 to “at least” January 16. The Singapore budget carrier was planning to fly the B787-9 to both Hong Kong and Perth from the first day of the year. While both Etihad and Scoot were unavailable for comment, Business Traveller Asia-Pacific has noticed that there have been several service introduction delay incidents involving the B787-9 Dreamliner in the past few weeks. Air New Zealand (ANZ) had to delay B787-9 service inauguration to both Shanghai and Tokyo by about two weeks. Virgin Atlantic Airways has just delayed the B787-9 to Newark and Washington (Dulles). The Dreamliner does not have a huge fan base.  A recent Al Jazeera documentary called ‘Broken Dreams: The Boeing 787’ showed Boeing employees providing damning reviews of the aircraft’s development and production processes. For more information, visit boeing.com Dominic Sebastian Lalk