The traditional water-cannon salute greets the ANA Boeing 787 Dreamliner as it makes at Tokyo's Haneda Airport on July 3, 2011. The flight was part of testing for the jet, which will begin flying paying passengers October 2011.
Finally, there is a concrete date for the first commercial flight of Boeing's 787 "Dreamliner" aircraft. The Japanese carrier All Nippon Airways (ANA) says its first commercial flight of the 787 is scheduled for Oct. 26, 2011 which will be a round-trip between Tokyo Narita and Hong Kong.
Following another set of Hong Kong "excursion" flights, ANA will put the 787 into regularly scheduled service beginning Nov. 1, 2011 on routes between Tokyo Haneda and the Japanese destinations of Okayama and Hiroshima. ANA also announced plans for its first long-haul route for the 787, saying it plans to begin Tokyo Narita-Frankfurt service with the jet in January 2012.
The route venture between ANA and Lufthansa, according to The Sydney Morning Herald, which (among other things) will allow customers on the 787 route to connect to onward destinations either via Frankfurt or via Tokyo Narita.
Photo: Yoshikazu Tsuno, AFP/Getty Images
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