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Qatar Airways will be the first airline in the world to operate the Boeing 787 Dreamliner to Australia when it commences flights from Doha to Perth in Western Australia from February 1, 2013. Coupled with its Doha London Heathrow 787 service, Qatar Airways will be the first airline to offer a UK to Australia ‘all Dreamliner’ service.
Despite being the second airline, globally, to order the aircraft, India’s national carrier Air India has waffled on its introduction of the Dreamliner, and is progressively losing ground to competitors like Qatar, who are aggressively introducing the new aircraft on their routes.
Air India received its Dreamliners months ahead of Qatar Airways, and yet chose not to operate the aircraft to one of its best destinations — London, meekly handing over the prize to Qatar. Air India instead operates the Dreamliner, internationally, on routes like Dubai, which is essentially filled with low cost labour traffic, and to Frankfurt, where the airline loses to competitors like Lufthansa who offer global connections, instead of London Heathrow which offers a good balance of premium and leisure traffic, and where Air India has significant Origin and Destination demand thanks to a large Indian origin population.
The airline has been ‘planning’ a Delhi to Sydney/Melbourne operation for over two years now. The management of Air India has a dynamic minister of Civil Aviation in Ajit Singh now. It time for Rohit Nandan and his team to take the bull by its horns. Even airline staffers are confused as to why the airline is not commencing its Australia operations, loosing hundreds of thousands of passengers to the ASEAN carriers, every year.
The 787 Dreamliner is made up of composite materials making it a lighter and more fuel efficient than any comparable aircraft of its size and range. Key features include larger windows, lower cabin pressure at higher altitude ensuring less fatigue, mood lighting throughout the aircraft and more passenger space and comfort.
