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More Dreamliner services grounded: Air India, LAN, JAL, Qatar and LOT

Published: 17/01/2013 - Filed under: News »

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Air India, Chilean carrier LAN and, most recently, Qatar Airways have announced that their B787 aircraft will be out of service for at least a week or until further notice.

This follows an advisory issued by the Federal Aviation Administration this morning requiring all Dreamliners to “temporarily cease operations” pending safety testing of the onboard batteries (see story here). This directive was prompted by a series of incidents involving the aircraft, with the most recent being an All Nippon Airways (ANA) B787 making an emergency landing yesterday (see here). 

The European Aviation Safety Agency has endorsed the FAA directive, meaning that LOT Polish has also grounded its B787 aircraft.

United, Japan Airlines (see here) and ANA have all suspended their Dreamliner services, affecting scores of passengers scheduled for these flights.

JAL has made another announcement that its fleet of seven B787s will not be in use until at least January 25, but that five of the affected routes will remain functional through using B777s and B767s as replacement aircraft. The service between Narita and San Diego will, however, be cancelled and Narita-Boston flights will experience delays on certain days.

Air India has six B787s that fly daily from Delhi to Frankfurt, Paris, Chennai and Bangalore – routes that will be operated by alternative aircraft until further notice, Debashis Golder, regional manager of Air India Asia-Pacific, said. He added that the carrier will follow the direction of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation in India, and that he believes the aircraft could be out of service for "a week or max ten days" while they undergo maintenance checks.

Air India has 27 B787s on order, and that will as yet remain unchanged, Golder said.

Qatar Airways has also just released a statement from chief executive Akbar Al Baker annoucing the grounding of its five Dreamliners.

“Qatar Airways will resume 787 operations when we are clear that the aircraft meets the full requirements of the Airworthiness Directive and our standards which assure the safety of our passengers and crew at all times. So we are not flying the aircraft until and only such a time this is achieved," he said, adding that assistance will be provided to affected passengers to reach their destinations.

Visit boeing.com.

Alex Andersson

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COMMENTS » 

newbieflyer - 17/01/2013 12:53

Air India has 27 B747s on order -> you mean B787?

AlexAndersson - 18/01/2013 01:40

Thanks newbieflyer for pointing that out – the typo has been corrected.

Debashis - 18/01/2013 09:31

Hi Alex,

I am Golder who your news person spoke to.

Whilst Air India has discontinued B787s as per directive of DGCA until further notice, the routes namely Delhi to Frankfurt, Paris or Chennai and Bangalore are not cancelled but being operated with alternate aircraft namely B777, A321etc.

Please correct the news item else it will give wrong impression regarding cancellations for passengers for Paris or Frankfurt.

Further we will resume B787 as soon as we get clearance from DGCA

Thanks

Debashis

BusinessTraveller - 18/01/2013 10:40

Thanks for your post Debashis - we have amended the piece to reflect this.

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