Thai Airways International will inaugurate passenger operations with the Boeing 787 Dreamliner this summer and has tentatively selected the Australian city of Perth to be the first scheduled destination for the modern generation airliner. The carrier is expected to receive its first aircraft during the first quarter of this year and set July 1, 2014 as its entry into scheduled operation date, although the aircraft will likely be used on shorter-sector regional flights from Bangkok ahead of this for crew familiarisation.
Although flight schedules for the aircraft not yet been loaded into the GDS, the latest update of OAG Schedules Analyser indicates that the Thai flag carrier will use the aircraft on its daily Bangkok – Perth route from July 1, 2014 and then on a second daily Bangkok – Tokyo Haneda rotation, which will be introduced from August 1, 2014. The aircraft will be configured in a two-class arrangement with seating for 264 passengers.
The news was exclusively first revealed by our blog, Airline Route, earlier today and has since been spread around other media channels. You can see the original article here: Thai Airways 787 - Airline Route.
Thai currently utilises an Airbus A330-200 on its flight from its base at Suvarnabhumi Airport to Perth, while the new second daily flight to Tokyo’s downtown Haneda airport was first detailed by the carrier for a March 29, 2014 launch but for which reservations have not yet been opened. The carrier had indicated that this flight was to be served by either A330 or 747 equipment.
The Star Alliance member has eight Dreamliners on order, all to be leased from International Lease Finance Corporation (ILFC). This includes six 787-8s due from this year (four in 2014 and two in 2015) and two of larger 787-9s, which will follow in 2017. It has also ordered 12 A350-900s and the two widebodied twin-engine types are expected to be used on routes within Asia and the Pacific.
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