I am once again abusing my WC membership and having a drink and cookies at the Aer Lingus lounge without a boarding pass, and I finally realized why something seemed so off kilter. In addition to the usual 744 that NW parks here over night, there is ANOTHER one (with the new livery) parked over at Gate B31.

NW's site says "Aircraft Damage- Weather". What does THAT mean? It hardly rained today!

So that brings me to my other question: why is the ground time for the NRT-JFK-NRT run always 22.5 hours? That seems like an awful waste of a pretty plane. I know it has to work with NRT connections, but why not start a another JFK-Asia or Europe route to work into the rotation?