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ANA’s Shinobe: B787 exceeds all expectations, including those forecast by Boeing
December 11th 2015
Speaking to This Week in Asia-Pacific Aviation at the Star Alliance chief executive meeting in Chicago, All Nippon Airways (ANA) president and chief executive, Osamu Shinobe, said Japan’s largest carrier was “more than satisfied” with the performance of its B787 Dreamliner fleet. Read More » Shinobe noted the global dispatch reliability of all aircraft across all carriers currently stood at 99.2%. ANA has achieved a 99.7% reliability factor on its B777-300ERs and a 99.6% on its B787 fleet, at the moment comprising 46 -8 variants and six -9 variants, with another 38 Dreamliners on order, making it the largest customer for the type.
Having achieved the highest dispatch reliability on the B787 of all current operators, Shinobe said manufacturer Boeing asked ANA if it could send its Dreamliner technicians to the U.S. to teach Boeing mechanics a thing or two about servicing the aircraft as it had outperformed Boeing’s own forecasts. The icing on the cake, the ANA president offered with obvious pride, was that ANA gets paid well by the manufacturers for offering its expertise, adding to its solid bottom line.
On its December 11 Dreamliner launch between Haneda and Sydney, Shinobe said he believed the service would be much more successful than when ANA last served Oceania 16 years ago, largely due to the much improved trade relations between Japan and Australia and the connectivity ANA now offers from Haneda to Europe. However, he said it would be a lot easier for ANA to expand its presence in Australia if it had a strong Star Alliance partner there.
“We want to have one in Australia,” Shinobe said. His carrier was looking at New Zealand, where it had a strong partner in Air New Zealand (Air NZ), but for now it will codeshare with Air NZ from Sydney to Auckland, Christchurch and Wellington. “Air New Zealand is our good friend,” he laughed.
ANA launched a Narita-Houston service in June. Shinobe said it was a tough call between the Texas hub and Denver when it was crunching the numbers in 2014. The carrier gave Houston priority due to the significant presence of its alliance partner, United Airlines’, in Houston although the carrier is still looking very seriously at Denver.
Asked about the potential of a Mexico City link, the ANA chief said the Mexican capital was definitely on the carrier’s radar and best served with the B787-8. But Mexico City’s high altitude posed a challenge to non-stop operations to Tokyo, without payload restrictions on the return journey. Shinobe said ANA was “working with Boeing” to develop a higher-thrust Dreamliner variant, with maximum take-off weight (MTOW) capabilities.
