ANA showed off their special Dreamliner Livery today. Photo by Boeing.
Today, All Nippon Airways (ANA) unveiled their special Boeing 787 Dreamliner livery.
The livery is the celebrate that ANA will be the first airline in the world to fly the 787 Dreamliner. The blue lines at the rear of the fuselage are designed to highlight how the three core elements of the airline’s service brand – innovation, uniqueness and the inspiration of modern Japan ’“ operate across the ANA network. Only two Dreamliners will be painted in the special livery, the rest will be in standard ANA livery.
Many have assumed that ANA would create a special livery since two of their 787 Dreamliners parked at Paine Field have kept a blank livery. The above computer drawing is from Boeing, but ANA also released some images of what the livery will look like.
ANA's new Business Class will have staggered seating. Click for bigger.
ANA also unveiled their new cabin layout that will premier on the 787 Dreamliner. Business Class seats will have full lay flat beds, 17″ monitors and staggered seating, allowing aisle access from every seat. For both long and short haul layouts in the 787 Dreamliner, there will be two classes: Business and Economy.
Economy class will feature seats that have fixed backs, where a passenger can recline, but it will not impede into the person’s space behind you. Every seat will have in seat entertainment and universal power and USB ports.
ANA has ordered 55 787 Dreamliners and the first should be delivered sometime in August or September.
Randy Tinseth, vice president, marketing for Boeing Commercial Airplanes, also has some additional renderings on the ANA Boeing 787 Dreamliner livery and the interior configuration posted to his blog.
The new Final Assembly Building in South Carolina
Boeing has been busy this week releasing one important press release after another. I am a little behind still, so I decided to put them all in one easy to follow blog to keep everyone updated:
BOEING OPENS NEW SOUTH CAROLINA 787 FINAL ASSEMBLY BUILDING
Boeing has officially opened the second location where the Boeing 787 Dreamliner will be built – North Charleston South Carolina. Although the 787 is a bit behind schedule, the new facility was completed six months ahead of its origional schedule. The final assembly of the first South Carolina-built 787 Dreamliner will begin later this summer. Once up and running, the facility is expected to produce three 787 Dreamliners per month.
The new Final Assembly building encompasses 642,720 square feet and used one million cubic feet of concrete. Compare that to the Boeing Factory in Everett, WA being 4,299,967 square feet.
BOEING STARTS SHARING ON FLICKR
If you read the blog, you know I have loved following Boeing through their social media exploration. Not too long ago, they started a YouTube account adn now they have started Flickr — be sure to follow.
AIRCRAFT DELIVERY MILESTONES
This week Boeing delivered their 50th aircraft to Egyptair and their 275th Boeing 737 Next Generation to GE Capital Aviation Services (GECAS). Boeing also delivered Angola Airline’s first 777-300ER.
BOEING 747-8F FLYING TO PARIS ON BIOFUEL
This will be the first time that an airliner has flown across the Atlantic Ocean using BioFuel. Boeing pilots Capt. Keith Otsuka and Capt. Rick Braun and Cargolux Capt. Sten Rossby will fly the airplane with each of the 747-8 Freighter’s four GE GEnx-2B engines powered by a blend of 15 percent camelina-based biofuel mixed with 85 percent traditional kerosene fuel (Jet-A).
BOEING EXPECTS DEMAND FOR 33,500 NEW PLANES OVER NEXT 20 YEARS
That is a lot of moola — about $4trillion to be exact. Boeing forcasts that the world fleet will double by 2030 and obviously want to get in on the action. Boeing is concentrating on growth in China and India with most new aircraft deliveries taking place in Asian Pacific countries.
Image: Boeing
This Boeing 787 Dreamliner is supposed to be the sixth 787 that Air India is supposed to take delivery of.
Air India is going through some pretty difficult times and many are questioning their future. Heather Timmons with the New York Times recently shared a story on how a new Air India employee made a horrific discovery on one of their flights that clearly highlights the airline’s current lack of oversight.
The new pilot made a visit to the cockpit during a flight and discovered both pilots had covered the windows with newspaper to block out the sun — an obvious violation.
This is only one of many complaints the state-run airline has received recently and passengers are noticing. The airline used to be the primary airline in India, but has since been surpassed by Kingfisher, IndiGo and Jet Airways since India’s airline industry was deregulated almost 20 years go.
During the last fiscal year, Air India lost about $1 billion in taxpayer money. Currently, there is a solid movement for the Indian government to remove themselves from the airline business.
Even with the outside pressure, both a spokes person for Air India and India’s new civil aviation minister, Vayalar Ravi, have stated the airline will not shut down and will remain under governmental control.
Ravi has admitted that there has been poor management in the past and that the airline has bought too many planes. Air India changed many of their wide-bodied orders into single-aisle orders in 2006 and today there is talk that Air India might have to defer the delivery of their Boeing 787 Dreamliners due to their continuing financial crisis.
It seems the management of Air India needs to wake up. Obviously, the current plan is not working and the airline has already lost many of their customers. It takes much more money and effort to convince alienated customers to come back than it does to attract new ones. With strong competition from other airlines, Air India will need to make serious changes to survive.
787 Chief Pilot Mike Carriker looks out at the 747-8 Intercontinental. Click for larger. Photo by Boeing.
Randy Tinseth, vice president of marketing for Boeing Commercial Airplanes, recently posted this photo on his blog to help promote which Boeing aircraft will be showing up at the Paris Air Show later this month. Tinseth announced that the 747-8 Intercontinental, the 747-8 Freighter, the first 787 flight-test airplane ZA001, an Air Berlin 737-700 with the new Boeing Sky Interior, and a Qatar Airways Boeing 777-200LR will be present at the air show.
Boeing 787 Dreamliner ZA001 at Paine Field.
What is in a name? Well a lot actually. Could you imagine the Boeing 787 not being called the Dreamliner? Well, it almost happened. The 787 was almost called the Global Cruiser instead.
When the Boeing 787 was first discussed, Boeing named it the 7E7. Randy Tinseth, Vice President , Marketing for Boeing Commercial Planes, describes the naming process on his Randy’s Journal Blog.
Tinseth explains how there were many different naming sessions and workshops to come up with a proper name. After many different sessions and post the trademark and legal teams it seemed that the name Global Cruiser was leading the pack.
Boeing decided to hold a contest to see what the name would be. The finalists were: Dreamliner, Global Cruiser, Stratoclimber, and the eLiner.
Almost 500,000 votes came in from 160 different countries and it was a close race. Counting just votes in the US, the name Global Cruiser would have won. But with all the votes world-wide, the name Dreamliner won by only 2500 votes.
I couldn’t imagine the Dreamliner being named anything else — it fits the aircraft well. Although if Global Cruiser would have won, the DreamLifter probably would have been called the Global Lifter which sounds pretty sweet.
Do you think something would have been lost or gainedwith another name?
