Mumbai: American aircraft maker Boeing will fly its most anticipated and state-of-the-art airplane, the Boeing 787 Dreamliner , to India next week, aviation industry sources said. The aircraft, already behind schedule by over three years from its first delivery date, has national carrier Air India as its second delivery customer after Japanese private carrier All Nippon Airways.
One of the lightest planes to have taken to the skies, the airplane made of carbon fibre and composite materials, will fly to the Delhi International Airport for two test flights and then to Mumbai on July 16, said a person with direct knowledge of the matter. From Mumbai, the aircraft takes off to its base in Seattle. Boeing flew 787 with its first customer ANA to Tokyo on July 3.
The Japanese carrier is also contemplating putting the 787s on the Mumbai-Tokyo route. "The 787 Dreamliner will fill in the much-needed gap in the mid-sized aircraft segment for the airlines in India," said Boeing's India president Dinesh Keskar, declining to offer a comment on the test flight of the Boeing 787 to India. Airlines in India have a mix of both narrow body aircraft, Boeing 737 and Airbus A320, which can fly 160-190 passengers, and wide-body, like the A330s and B777s, which have the capacity to fly over 350 passengers. But the Dreamliner offers an option of flying 250 passengers for the long-haul flights with maximum fuel efficiency.
"Only the functional reliability test remains to be done," Keskar said. Boeing's Dreamliner programme has been through some rough weather after the strike at its Seattle facility and production delays as it relies heavily on Boeing's use of assembled parts and reliance on outsourcing from other countries. The first test flight took off in 2009.
06/07/11 Manisha Singhal/Economic Times
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