EVERETT, Washington, March 25 (Kyodo) — Japan Airlines Corp. on Sunday received two of Boeing Co.'s state-of-the-art 787 Dreamliner passenger jets at the U.S. manufacturer's plant in Everett, Washington, with a plan to fly the fuel-efficient, mid-size aircraft on a new service linking Tokyo and Boston beginning April 22.
Following a ceremony to mark the delivery of the wide-body aircraft at the plant, one of the two jets will fly to Japan's Narita airport. It is scheduled to arrive there Tuesday evening Japan time.
The airline will introduce the jets, which raise the comfort level for passengers with higher ceilings and improved cabin pressure, after All Nippon Airways Co. put the aircraft into service in November last year.
JAL will also fly the Dreamliner on existing routes connecting Tokyo and Beijing, New Delhi and Moscow from late April and introduce the jets to routes to Singapore from September, to San Diego from December and to Helsinki from March next year.
The twin-engine, twin-aisle aircraft, with half of its body made up of carbon composite materials on a weight basis, has about 20 percent improved fuel efficiency compared with existing models and the size of its windows is 1.3 times that of Boeing 767 airplane.
The 787 jet has 42 business class seats and 144 economy class seats and passengers can enjoy the world's first in-flight electronic comic book services.
Due to a series of delays in the Dreamliner's development by Boeing, delivery of the aircraft to JAL and other airlines was more than three years later than originally planned.