The B787 Dreamliner Coming to Nairobi

The December schedule for the 787 Dream Tour includes six stops in Asia, Africa and the Middle East

This will be one of the big events in the aviation history in Kenya and Africa as the B787 Dreamliner will be landing at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in its 3 Continent World Tour for the first time and flying passengers from Nairobi to Mombasa.

The 6 month B787 Dream Tour began in China on 4th December and will go on until 11th December when the ZA003—the third 787 Dreamliner will head to Addis Ababa Ethiopia and Nairobi Kenya to visit Ethiopian Airlines and Kenya Airways.  A "visit" that will last at the 16th of December. From December 16th-19th the B787 Dreamliner will pay Qatar Airways a visit in Doha.

According to Randy Tinseth, Vice President, Marketing for Boeing Commercial Airplanes, "After seeing the airplane in Dubai and giving media a tour, I know people are really going to love what they see on the Dream Tour. It’s truly a stunning interior that will turn heads. "

Here are a few shots of the ZA003:

ZA003 on display at the Dubai Airshow.

Wow! Too bad I have not been invited to this :(  but I will keep tabs on things from some of my popular journalist contacts via Twitter. Wolfgang H Thome below showing some of his usual enthusiasm for historic aviation milestones in East Africa::

December 14th has been set as the long awaited date, that Boeing’s new ‘wonderplane’, the B787 Dreamliner is finally making an appearance over the skies of Kenya, a harbinger of things to come when ‘The Pride of Africa’ finally can take delivery of the first of 9 firm orders – and 4 further options – come 2013.

Ordered initially several years ago, the first delivery last month to Japan’s ANA was years overdrawn and resulted in equally long delays for the East African Community’s predominant airline, Kenya Airways. The B787 is upon delivery due to replace the ageing fleet of B767 aircraft, offering substantially lower operating expenses as well as provide more capacity for passengers and cargo, while at the same time greatly enhancing the inflight experience for passengers through improved cabin pressure settings at lower altitude, greater humidity in the hitherto very dry cabin atmosphere and substantially larger windows, made possible by the use of composite materials in the manufacturing of the world’s latest wide body aircraft.

Initial feedback from passengers on the ANA B767 has confirmed, if not outright exceeded expectations and the promises made by Boeing so far have come true, for the airline as well it appears, though it is early days to draw real comparisons in operating costs for the ‘new bird’.

It was announced here a while ago that Boeing had confirmed a ‘world tour’ of the new aircraft, to show the B787 off to airlines with orders, and to promote additional sales of the new aircraft and this is now becoming reality with the clock ticking towards the morning of the 14th of December, when both Kenya Airways and Boeing will be presenting the ‘Dreamliner’ at Nairobi’s Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.

Invited guests from the corporate world and the regional media will be able to not just step into the plane while on the ground but also experience a flight from Nairobi to Mombasa, allowing one to judge directly what improvements the new aircraft offers over the ‘conventional’ wide bodies like the B777.e
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