Boeing 787 Dreamliner Makes First Commercial Flight

Boeing Co’s (NYSE:BA) 787 Dreamliner on Wednesday made its first commercial flight from Tokyo to Hong Kong carrying its first paying passengers.

The manufacturer of the Dreamliner, Boeing said that the plane is made on a carbon composite design that makes the plane lighter, more comfortable and more economical to fly compared to its rival’s currently manufactured planes.

The 787 Dreamliner, a special charter twin engine jet landed at Hong Kong’s International Airport in the afternoon on Wednesday, after a delayed flight. The plane was finally handed to its owners after a prolonged delay as engineers at Boeing faced malfunctions and part delays, leaving Boeing with losses worth about $16 billion.

The 787 is a little slower compared to Boeing’s flagship 787 series. It is the first commercial plane the company built from scratch in over 50 years. Nippon Airways Co, the first owner of the 787 Dreamliner is pleased with the idea of carrying its passengers in an increased time span with a higher fuel efficiency. As an alternative, Nippon wants to deliver their passengers happier and cheaper, a strategy that all carriers see as a key to survival in the aggressive global airline market.

The 787 Dreamliner was planned initially in 2001, as a successor to the discontinued Concorde and was titled as a Sonic Cruiser. The plane was designed to be more fuel efficient and save bankrupt airline carriers the cost of soaring fuel prices. The design of the plane promised speed along with fuel efficiency.

Most of the jetliners travel at speeds of about eight tenths the speed of sound, however mach 0.98 was promised by the Sonic Cruiser, cutting hours of extended haul flights between New York and Tokyo. The perceptible end of cheap fuel, with costs up to $100 a barrel, pushed Boeing and other airplane manufacturers to change course towards fuel efficient planes. Hence the 787 Dreamliner was born. Boeing’s competitor, Airbus also concentrated on reducing its cost per passenger mile.

Boeing is comfortable with production targets of its 787 Dreamliner, said Scott Fancher, Beings head for the 787 Dreamliner program. The airline maker hopes to produce 10 planes every month by 2013.

A 20 percent improvement in fuel efficiency is offered by Boeing’s technological flagship, with its majorly built carbon composite body. The planes cabin builders have promised a flight with good ambience that will lull passengers to sleep and increased air pressure that will make the interior atmosphere like experienced at 6,000 feet unlike 8,000 feet pressure that passengers feel on other planes.

Post Written By: Ed Liston Ed Liston is a senior contributing editor at TheStockMarketWatch.com. An active market watcher and investor, Ed guides an independent team of experienced analysts and writes for multiple stock trader publications. He is widely quoted in various financial publications on the Internet. When Ed is not writing about stocks, investing in stocks, talking about stocks, or otherwise doing something stock related, he likes to go sailing and fishing in his yacht.