Tokyo: His plight is shared by Dreamliner pilots across the industry since the planes were grounded on Jan. 16. Pilots, who spend weeks training for new aircraft, usually don't fly more than one type of plane at the same time to reduce the risk of mistakes in different cockpits. With no end in sight for the planes to resume service, they are passing their time practicing in flight simulators and speaking to students.
"When you don't know when the aircraft will be ready to fly again, you don't want to cross that bridge of putting them on to another aircraft," said Peter Harbison, executive chairman at the Sydney-based CAPA Centre for Aviation. "There will be an array of issues in putting them on other planes."
Experts are still investigating the cause of a lithium-ion battery fire on a Japan Airlines Co.-operated Dreamliner in Boston in January, and an emergency landing by a 787 plane of All Nippon Airways later that month. The incidents led to their global grounding, the first time in 34 years that an entire airplane model has been pulled from service.
07/03/13 Chris Cooper and Kiyotaka Matsuda/ Bloomberg News/HeraldNet
