Boeing 787 Dreamliner cleared to fly by US aviation authorities

Boeing's 787 Dreamliner is set to fly again, after the US authorities gave the go-ahead Friday to a redesign of the plane's troubled lithium-ion battery system.

The Dreamliner fleet was grounded in January, after incidents of fire and smoke in the batteries of two planes. The global grounding came as just 50 of the planes had been delivered and was the longest of a commercial model in the jet age.

The company has been working on a solution with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). FAA administrator Michael Huerta said: "A team of FAA certification specialists observed rigorous tests we required Boeing to perform and devoted weeks to reviewing detailed analysis of the design changes to reach this decision."

"The FAA set a high bar for our team and our solution," said Boeing's chairman and chief executive, Jim McNerney. "We appreciate the diligence, expertise and professionalism of the FAA's technical team and the leadership of FAA administrator Michael Huerta and secretary of transportation Ray LaHood throughout this process. Our shared commitment with global regulators and our customers to safe, efficient and reliable airplanes has helped make air travel the safest form of transportation in the world today."

The FAA will publish regulations on how to alter the batteries in the US Federal Register next week, allowing Boeing and airlines to proceed with the fixes. The company is believed to have come up with a solution that involves greater separation between the batteries' cells and a venting system for any potentially flammable gases.

Top US safety inspector the National Transport Safety Board (NTSB) and Japanese authorities are still investigating the original causes of the two incidents, one in a plane parked at Boston's Logan airport and the other during flight in Japan.

The plane's grounding marked the first time since 1979 that FAA had banned every plane of a particular type from flying. That ban, on the Douglas DC-10, followed a fatal crash and was lifted within a month.

The 787's problems have been compounded by its hi-tech design. The Dreamliner is the largest passenger plane to make such extensive use of lithium ion batteries, which are lighter and can hold more energy than other types of batteries. The batteries, however, have also proved volatile and caused fires in smaller planes, cars, computers and mobile devices.

Next week the NTSB will hold the second set of hearings this month on lithium-ion batteries and the fire that broke out on the 787 at Logan. The NTSB chairman, Deborah Hersman, has been critical of the "assumptions" regulators used before clearing the ground-breaking use of the battery. The NTSB has also criticised Boeing for making statements "inconsistent with our expectations."

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Qantas cancels Boeing 787 Dreamliner order



By MarketWatch

SYDNEY--Qantas Airways Ltd. has cancelled an order for one of Boeing Co.'s BA +2.14% 787 Dreamliners amid uncertainty over the growth prospects of its Jestar unit's long-haul business.

The 14 other Dreamliners Qantas has on order will touch down in Australia from mid-2013 as part of the airline's upgrade to its low-cost business, the carrier said in a statement Friday.

The decision was taken at the end of last year, before a spate of problems this month that has seen Boeing's flagship carrier grounded due to safety fears, Qantas said, reiterating the company's commitment to its orders for the planes.

"We are using the flexibility in our agreement with Boeing to cancel a firm order knowing that we can replace it with one of our 50 options for this aircraft down the track," said Chief Executive Alan Joyce.

Qantas said it was also boosting its domestic fleet with the addition of five Boeing 717 aircraft and three Bombardier Q400s, with deliveries slated to start in the second half of the year.

Scoot plans mixed Boeing 787 Dreamliner fleet


Singapore Airlines' low-cost offshoot Scoot will put a dollar each way with the Dreamliner, rolling out both the original 787-8 and the larger 787-9 as the backbone of its fleet.

Scoot inherited an order for 20 Boeing 787-9s from its parent in October last year, after Singapore Airlines bulked up its order for 40 of Airbus' competing A350.

However, Scoot CEO Campbell Wilson now plans to split the Dreamliner order to include the smaller 787-8 alongside the 787-9.
"They're operationally interchangeable so there's no efficiency impact, but the different capacities open more options with respect to network and deployment" Wilson told FlightGlobal, which tips the airline is likely to take 10 of each Dreamliner variant.

Scoot is slated to receive its first 787-9 in late 2014, which with Scoot's two class layout of business class and economy will see the total seat tally blast past the 300 mark.

Scoot's 787s will feature different seating compared to the airline's current fleet, as Boeing insists on an 'off the plan' approach for the Dreamliner's economy section in which seats are chosen from a roster of Boeing-approved suppliers and models.
While airlines are free to select 'premium' seats from the same roster or install their own third-party supplied seat, cost-conscious airlines such as Scoot will lean towards the cheaper and faster option to have seats from the catalogue installed by Boeing as the 787s make their way down the assembly line.

Scoot joins Jetstar as one of the low-cost carriers stumping up for the Boeing 787, based on its reduced running costs via lower fuel consumption and longer time between major maintenance checks.