The Dreamliner woes continue with cracks in the wings found during manufacture and another emergency landing for a JAL Dreamliner. And in the meantime Norwegian Airlines is in rough seas as a consequence of their Dreamliner problems but have still ordered another four aircraft. Their eggs are all in the Dreamliner basket now but Boeing must have provided a great many sweeteners. The Dreamliners are proving not to be as fuel efficient as it was claimed they would be when they were being sold. Air India which has taken delivery of 13 Dreamliners and has a total of 27 on order is also reported to be seeking compensation from Boeing.
Japan Airlines said Sunday its Dreamliner flight from Tokyo to San Francisco made an emergency landing in Honolulu, reportedly due to a possible problem with its hydraulic system.
The pilot of flight JL002, carrying 171 passengers and crew, decided to divert to Hawaii after a warning message about falling pressure of lubricant oil in its right engine, according to Japanese national broadcaster NHK.
Boeing Has a New 787 Dreamliner Headache With Wing Cracks
Boeing’s 787 is the airplane program that keeps on giving—problems. The company will inspect about 40 airplanes and delay some 787 deliveries after Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, which makes the plane’s carbon fiber wing, discovered small cracks in newly built wings following a change in its manufacturing process, Boeing said Friday.
The cracked area is very small and will require repairs that will take a week or two per airplane, Boeing spokesman Marc Birtel said. “We are confident that the condition does not exist in the in-service fleet,” the company said in an e-mailed statement. “We understand the issue, what must be done to correct it, and are completing inspections of potentially affected airplanes.”
Mitsubishi Heavy crafts the wings in Nagoya, Japan, and Boeing flies them to its 787 assembly plants in Everett, Wash., and North Charleston, S.C. About 17 of the 787s being inspected are fully completed, and seven have been undergoing predelivery flight tests, according to the Wall Street Journal, which first reported news of the cracks.
Profits down after Dreamliner dramas
Norwegian Air reported a profit in 2013 for the seventh year running on Thursday, but takings were significantly down on previous years. Major problems setting up its new long-haul routes with trouble-plagued Boeing 787 Dreamliners led to a huge amount of customer complaints, and the budget carrier angered unions and other airlines over pay conditions and its use of cheaper Asian crews. Norwegian reported its pre-tax profits for 2013 were NOK 437 million (USD 71.5 million), down from NOK 623 million in 2012. The airline lost NOK 283 million in the fourth quarter.
Norwegian orders four more Dreamliners and reports Q4 losses
Norwegian Air Shuttle announced on Thursday the lease of four more Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft, despite a series of technical hitches with the planes. The contract, which brings Norwegian’s planned Dreamliner fleet to 14, was signed with the US aircraft leasing company International Lease Finance Corporation (ILFC) but no financial details were released.
Boeing Says Air India Unhappy With 787 Dreamliner’s Performance
Boeing Co. said Air India Ltd. is dissatisfied with the performance of its 787 Dreamliner, joining other carriers including Norwegian Air Shuttle ASA in slamming the manufacturer for repeated faults on its marquee jet. “Yes, they are not happy with the reliability portion, neither are we,” Dinesh Keskar, a senior vice president at the Chicago-based planemaker, said in an interview at the Singapore Air Show today. “Over the last few months, we understood which are the components that were causing issues, which software needs to be upgraded.”
…. Air India diverted one of its 787s to Kuala Lumpur this month as a precaution after a software fault on a flight to New Delhi from Melbourne. Boeing is upgrading software and changing some components on Air India 787s whenever the planes can be taken out of service, Keskar said, adding that a 13th Dreamliner will be delivered to the carrier this month. …… Air India, which has ordered 27 Dreamliners, will seek compensation from Boeing after the carrier found that its 787s aren’t as fuel efficient as the planemaker had claimed while selling them ……. Fuel efficiency of the Dreamliner is improving after earlier models didn’t “quite make the mark” on this count, Keskar said.
The k2p blog 