AlwaysAisle

Press Release by ANA (PDF file)

According to media, this is due to problem discovered on 787 Rolls-Royce engines and affects 50 ANA 787. Problem is rust/degradation of turbine blades first experienced back in February at KUL, and same problem was discovered at HAN in March.

Redesigned blades will not be available till January next year. Until redesigned parts arrive, engines need to be replaced with brand new blades frequently. This necessitates pulling 787 off from schedule flights. ANA has said there will be more cancelation of 787 flights, will be announced later and expected to continue till January next year.

Rolls-Royce said same blade situation was observed on BI (Royal Brunei) 787 twice so far.

tropikey

I hope the cancellations will affect only short distance flights, such as indicated in press release. I'm flying NH B787 from DUS to NRT in late October and I'm excited to experience their J on such long flight, so it would be disaster, if they cancel this flight...

rienhart87

I hope ANA and RR will be able to find the solution soon as I am scheduled to fly from PVG to HND onboard their 787. I am still a 787 virgin so it will be a big bummer if they cancel my flight

Kaz_Marlborough

I just returned from HKG with NH860, which originally 787 was assigned, actually replaced by 777 and some announcement was made during taxing. For me, thanks to the ship change my seat has been changed to a better one

TennisNoob

Flightaware still showed B789 as the aircraft.

https://flightaware.com/live/flight/ANA860

AlwaysAisle

ANA said this affects their entire 787 aircraft which ANA uses Trent 1000 engines. The specific blades are located at IP (Intermediate Pressure) turbine which control air pressure inside of an engine from 1.5 atm to 10 atm pressure. Coatings on blades to protect oxidative degradation was not properly doing the job, hence cracks were forming on blades way faster than Rolls-Royce suggested maintenance schedule.

Initially Rolls-Royce indicated to ANA that this blade problem only affects 787s on international flight. Due to short distance of domestic flights in Japan, domestic ANA 787s pretty much never operate with maximum weight nor maximum fuel capacity. Hence domestic 787 flights operate under lower power setting than international flights, which result in blades on Trent 1000 engines on domestic ANA 787s operate under lower stress than international 787s. This seems to be the reason Rolls-Royce assumed this blade situation should be only on international 787s. However, same blade problem was discovered on one of ANA’s domestic 787 on August 20.

This prompted cancellations of domestic 787 flights to replace blades on domestic 787 Trent 1000 engines to brand new blades. Initially ANA has scheduled out maintenance so that this engine problem can be handled without affecting 787 operation schedule, if the situation is confined only to their international 787s. However, now the situation was discovered on both domestic and international ANA 787s, maintenance schedule no longer cannot be handled without causing flight cancellation. Hence, recent announcement by ANA.

Trent 1000 are used by LOT, LATAM, Norwegian, ILFC, British Airways, Royal Brunei, Scoot, Virgin Atlantic, and Thai beside ANA. However, Rolls-Royce is indicating that currently IP turbine blade situation has been observed only on 787s operated by ANA and Royal Brunei.

tropikey

Thank you very much for such detailed information. Do you know, how long may it take to replace blades in all ANA's Dreamliners?
And one more thing. As far as I understand, international flights might be not affected by cancelations or ot least number of cancelations might be not as big, as in case of domestic flights. Is that right?

AlwaysAisle

As far as I am aware, no announcement from ANA yet. ANA has said more 787 flight cancellations is possible, and highly likely, until January 2017 when new redesigned blades will be available. ANA said announcement will be made on later date, and as far as I am aware no further announcement has made yet.

Do not know if ANA will give priority to international flights by cancelling domestic flights over international flights.

TennisNoob

It's really interesting! One could argue when an plane is flying broken it shouldn't fly long-haul. Than at the sametime, domestic flights can easily be consolidated since they have so much frequency while international there's not many planes sitting around that can fly those distances.

Vivianuccia

Bloomberg.com says that only about 38% of NH 78s are powered by RR Trent 1000, the rest by GE, but NYT seems to think the whole NH 78 fleet is RR and will have to be serviced. Hard to get the real story. Won't be too happy if my October multi-leg J/Premium international/domestic itinerary has me in the old 76, although knowing NH the soft product will still be great. :-)

armagebedar

My understanding from reading the various press releases is that the cancellations will only impacts domestic routes operated by 787s.

The following link has more details of flight delays/cancellations in Japanese: http://www.ana.co.jp/apps/info/info2...6143902037.pdf

nwflyboy

What exactly are "obesity routes" - those with lots of chubby North Americans on board?

I'm looking at a trip on NW 177/178 in July 2017. And one reason I choose ANA for this flight is the NH 787 (which I've flown before and love). What are the odds of me getting my 787 on that flight in July 2017?

armagebedar

You can thank my smartphone for that one... Corrected!

lovejapan

The RR Trent engines power 38% of the whole worldwide 787 fleet. All of NH's 787s are powered by the RR Trent engines, of which there are different models (A, C, E, etc). It looks as though the fan blade issue affects only the engines on the domestic 787s due to the short flight duration. This also explains why the long haul 787s continue flying without any issue.

rienhart87

What about the 787s that are flying regional routes to Shanghai, Beijing, Jakarta, etc? Are those birds affected too?