Japan’s All Nippon Airways (ANA), the biggest customer of Boeing’s glitch-hit Dreamliner, confirmed today that it would restart flights with the modified high-tech plane at the start of next month.
ANA will resume services from June 1 “following the successful completion of a series of battery system modifications, safety checks and test flights”, it said in a statement.
“Our engineers have worked closely with Boeing to undertake the required improvements and we are fully satisfied with the safety of our 787 fleet.”
Last month a modified Dreamliner safely took to the skies over Tokyo with top Boeing and ANA executives aboard, as the planemaker and its leading client sought to reassure passengers over the jetliner.
It was the first flight by an ANA 787 since the worldwide fleet of next-generation planes was grounded over safety concerns due to faulty batteries on board two planes.
ANA will reopen routes linking Tokyo’s Narita airport to San Jose, California, with the Dreamliner fleet on June 1.
Suspended flights between Narita and Seattle will also restart on June 1 but with the Boeing 777.
Reservations for these flights will start tomorrow.
The 787 will also return to services from Tokyo’s Haneda Airport to Frankfurt and the Haneda-Beijing route on June 1.
ANA will also introduce the Dreamliner onto a further three international routes from this summer — Narita to Beijing and Haneda to Taipei from June 1 as well as Narita to Shanghai from August 1.
Dreamliners will remain suspended on services between Chubu in central Japan and South Korea’s main international airport of Incheon, as well as for flights from Kansai in western Japan to Incheon.
The 787 will also return to domestic flights starting from June 1.