All Nippon Airways will be cancelling 379 more flights this February, bringing the total of affected flights to 838 since one of the 787 Dreamliners was forced to make an emergency landing last January 16. Since then, all of the Boeing 787s have been grounded worldwide by safety commissions.
An estimated 24,300 passengers will be affected starting February 1 when it cancels 245 domestic flights over 12 days and 134 international routes over 18 days. Nine international routes, including Narita to San Jose, California, Seattle and Seoul’s Incheon International Airport, and from Tokyo’s Haneda airport to Frankfurt and Gimpo International Airport in Seoul will be suspended. They will be making further announcements regarding flights beyond February 19.
This comes after US safety regulators say it will probably take months before they will be able to finish their investigation into why the battery caught fire in a Japan Airlines flight and then why ANA was forced to land one of its planes on a separate incident. Investigators are having a hard time figuring out the reasons since the 787 Dreamliner is a relatively new and technologically advanced aircraft.
ANA, Asia’s biggest airline by revenue, is the most affected by this grounding since they have 17 Dreamliners. Despite this very costly setback, Ryosei Nomura, a spokesman for ANA, said they are not considering changing their order of 49 more of the same aircraft. However, they are also realistic about how this will affect the company. “The 787, which is the pillar of our management strategy, is in such a condition we have yet to decide on whether we can present a two-year plan like we did in the past.” Nomura explains
[ via The National ]