Air India Takes First 787
Air India’s first Boeing 787 took off for Delhi from Charleston, South Carolina, last Friday. (Photo: Boeing)
Air India’s first Boeing 787 took off for Delhi from Charleston, South Carolina, last Friday. (Photo: Boeing)

A busy fortnight for the Boeing 787 program climaxed with the arrival of Air India’s first Dreamliner in Delhi last Saturday, just a week after the first of the new widebodies destined to enter service in the Americas went to Chile’s LAN. But while the LAN ceremonies in Everett, Washington, took place with standard tidiness after several days of orderly preparation, an Air India crew had to wait for nearly two weeks in Charleston, South Carolina, before Boeing could publicly confirm the Indian flag carrier’s acceptance of its first airplane, following several months of bureaucratic wrangling over program delay compensation.