Thai Airways To Launch Boeing 787

Thai Airways will debut its first Boeing 787 service between Bangkok and Perth, making its inaugural flight on July 1st this year.

A spokeswoman for Thai confirmed the date and the details withAustralian Business Traveller, adding that this would be followed on August 1st by a daily 787 service between Bangkok and Tokyo's Haneda airport.

Thai expects to have four Boeing 787s to its fleet by year's end with two more to follow in 2015. These will be joined in 2017 by a pair of the larger longer-range Boeing 787-9s.

The Dreamliners will be fitted with 24 seats in Thai's Royal Silk business class and 240 in economy, and feature the new 'Thai Contemporary Concept' design now being rolled out on the airline's Boeing 777-300ERs, including the refreshed business class cabin shown below.

However, it's not yet known if the longer Boeing 787-9 will also contain a small Oasis first class cabin based on the design of the upgraded Boeing 747s (shown below).

This will be Perth's first Dreamliner service, coming 14 weeks ahead of the October 15th debut for Air New Zealand's Boeing 787-9 on the Auckland-Perth route.

All eight of Thai's Dreamliners will be leased on a 12 year basis from aircraft leasing specialist International Lease Finance.

The US company is Boeing's largest customer for the 787 with 74 planes on order, slightly ahead of Etihad's pledge to buy 71 of the next-gen jetliner.