Ethiopian Airlines will take delivery of its first Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner next Tuesday, August 14. It will mark the first delivery of Boeing’s new aircraft to a carrier outside of Japan.
The plane will fly from the Boeing factory in Everett, Wash., to DC’s Dulles International Airport on Wednesday, where the airline says it will be on display for visits by “US Senators and House Representatives as well as Ambassadors, Executives from the World Bank and IMF, members of the Ethiopian community, the media and other invited guests.”
[NYCAviation will be onboard the delivery flight! Follow us on Twitter for realtime photos and commentary.]
From Dulles the jet will fly to its new home at Bole Addis Ababa International Airport, where it will arrive to huge celebrations on August 16.
The IAD-ADD flight IS bookable by the general public: we found it for $965 one way on Travelation and about $50 more on Expedia and Orbitz.
Ethiopian was originally scheduled to launch 787 service to Guangzhou, China, next week, but those plans have been shelved for now, according to airlineroute.net. Dreamliner service to Johannesburg and Dubai remain on the schedule. The airline says it will announce new routes at the Addis Ababa event.
So far only Japan’s All Nippon Airways and Japan Airlines have taken deliveries of the Dreamliner, about 20 altogether.
