JAL discusses more possible 787 destinations

Yesterday, Japan Airlines (JAL) President Yoshiharu Ueki discussed about the possibilities of adding new destinations in Myanmar, China and Indonesia. Today, the vice-president of network planning, Kiyoto Morioka, discussed more 787 possible destinations which include flights to fellow oneworld partner hubs in Europe.


Accord to BloombergBusinessweek, JAL is studying the possibilities of adding flights to Madrid, Berlin and Dusseldorf with 787. JAL is also looking into boosting existing service to New York and London when more 787s are delivered too.


In the past years, JAL has cut back on a lot of international services. Osaka Kansai - London Heathrow and Nagoya Chubu - Paris was suspended because at that time JAL was operating bigger 777 planes on these routes which were not profitable. Frequency on Tokyo Narita - New York JFK was also reduced. But 787 has changed the game and JAL is looking into starting services from Kansai and Chubu which has less international demand compared to Tokyo.


Boston is one of the good examples of how JAL could make use of the 787 to fly to markets with only medium demand profitably. The new Tokyo Narita - Boston flight will launch on April 22 2012. The inaugural flight is fully booked and JAL sees a load factor of 98% for the rest of April and 90% for May. 


Morioka also told the reporter that JAL will receive two additional 787s very soon. Looks like JAL can finally start the 787 service to Beijing, Delhi and Moscow. But as of right now, JAL website still shows 767 and 777 service to these destinations in July. Looks like they will update their booking engine in the near future too :)