Air India to fly board members in Dreamliner re-run today

State-owned carrier Air India is set to resume operations of the Boeing 787 Dreamliners on two domestic routes from tomorrow and on one international route from May 22, post the completion of modification of batteries by the aircraft manufacturer.

The entire board of Air India would be on the debut flight to Kolkata tomorrow, while senior officials from the Union civil aviation ministry are expected to travel on the other flight to Bangalore.

“The first commercial flight of the Dreamliner will start tomorrow from Delhi to Kolkata. Out of six of these Boeing 787 planes, two have been already modified following the battery fire incidents. The first international flight of the Dreamliner would be launched from May 22,” Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh said.

The remaining four of the total six Dreamliners with Air India now, would become operational by the month-end.

With another eight Dreamliners scheduled to be delivered by the end of this year, Air India would begin full-fledged international operations utilising the new aircraft, starting August 2013. Air India plans to commence flights from Delhi to Birmingham and Sydney-Melbourne from August, Rome and Milan from October and Moscow from early next year.

The minister refused to divulge the amount of compensation the US aircraft manufacturer would give to Air India, but said the airline has set up an internal committee to talk to Boeing on the issue.

Before the Dreamliners were grounded in January , Air India had deployed the six aircrafts on three domestic routes to Bangalore, Chennai and Kolkata and to three international destinations — Dubai, Frankfurt and Paris. The airline had deployed a Boeing 747-400 plane on the Delhi-Dubai route and clubbed the Paris and Frankfurt routes using a Boeing 777.

The turnaround plan of the loss-making government carrier largely banks on the operations of medium-haul Dreamliners, as the plane is claimed to be 20 per cent more fuel efficient, and do away with a route and plane mismatch in Air India’s operations.

Air India had introduced the Boeing 787 on routes like Frankfurt because of better route economics. By deploying the B777 on these routes, the advantage of fuel efficiency was lost. The airline has ordered a total of 27 Dreamliners.

The B-787s have remained grounded after an incident of fire in the lithium-ion batteries of a parked plane in Boston and a case of forced landing of another B-787 for the same reason in Japan. Boeing has since worked to develop new battery casings to prevent a repeat of the incidents of overheating of batteries providing auxiliary power.