Japan’s All Nippon Airways (ANA) has effectively reduced its daily flights between Seattle and Tokyo by half. This is a result of the cancellation of all flights on board the new Boeing 787 Dreamliner last week.
A series of mishaps involving Boeing’s new flagship has resulted in the grounding of ANA’s fleet of 17 Dreamliners as well as investigations by U.S. and Japanese regulators. ANA has canceled a total of 51 international flights and 320 domestic flights. It has canceled two-way Seattle flights on Thursday, Saturday, and next Monday and has reduced future flights to every other day instead of the daily schedule before the grounding of the fleet. ANA will also be using 777 planes for those flights. According to the airline, 150 to 200 passengers are affected by each cancellation. Future cancellations will depend on how long the Dreamliners will remain grounded. ANA has also canceled its daily flights to and from San Jose, California through Monday, except for one flight on Thursday.
Rival Japan Airlines (JAL) is also considering on resuming its nonstop service between Tokyo and San Diego. JAL also grounded its 787 fleet whose only international route is between Japan and San Diego. JAL is said to be also looking into making use of the larger 777 model to resume its flights to San Diego, which it started offering just last December.
[ via Seattle Times ]