Ethiopian and United Airlines Show Off New Dreamliners
Ethiopian Airlines will become Africa’s first operator of the new Boeing 787 Dreamliner, with a sightseeing flight of Mount Kilimanjaro for VIP and lucky Gold ShebaMiles members scheduled on the 18th of August. The aircraft will then be rotated throughout the network, focussing mainly on African and Middle Eastern airports until the company receives its second 787 when a assigned route will be named.
The Star Alliance member has configured the Dreamliner to carry up to 270 passengers with 246 economy seats configured in the standard 3-3-3 configuration and 24 seats in what Ethiopian Airlines calls Cloud Nine (business class) arranged in a 2-2-2 configuration.
Ethiopian Airlines has completed it first revenue flight with its new toy departing from Washington Dulles airport to Addis Ababa where it has continued with a tour of Africa. It is scheduled to arrive in Harare, Zimbabwe on the 21st of August. The airline has another 9 of these planes on order.
United Airlines opened up the doors to its new Dreamliner last week as it rolled out of the Boeing paint shop and let the media and a select few of its premium customers in to have a look. The airline is on track to officially receive the aircraft in September, (only 3 years behind schedule) with the first new route to be from Denver to Tokyo in March after doing a few domestic runs.
The airline has also launched a special livery for the Dreamliner with a swooping golden cheat line from nose to tail. It is apparently inspired by, and as a tribute to Boeing, with its trademark livery painted onto their plane which celebrates the two companies long history together.
United has fitted the plane out with 219 seats. Economy Class features 111 seats with 32 inch pitch and a traditional 3-3-3 configuration, and Economy Plus has the same configuration but with a little extra legroom with the 72 seats in this section having upto 36 inch pitch. There will also be 36 lie flat seats in BusinessFirst arranged in a 2-2-2 configuration. United has another 49 of these aircraft on order.
