Scoot Flies Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners to Perth, Hong Kong From January

Singapore Airlines' low-cost offshoot Scoot will take its inaugural Boeing 787-9 flight in January next year, with the Dreamliner heading from Singapore to both Perth and Hong Kong.

There's no word yet on which date marks the Dreamliner's debut either to either city, although it's known that Perth will follow Hong Kong in the same month.

Scheduled for delivery in December, Scoots' first Boeing 787-9 – christened as 'Dream Start' –  was first seen on the factory floor at Boeing as it crawls towards the official pre-flight rollout later this month.

Now it's out and about at Boeing in all its yellow-and-white glory.

Daily Dreamliner flights from Singapore to Sydney and Hong Kong are slated for 29 March 2015, according to schedule data entered by Scoot into the global distribution system (GDS) used by travel agents and reported by AirlineRoute.net.

Scoot will add the Gold Coast and Bangkok to its Boeing 787 network map in late April with the Chinese cities of Tianjin and Qingdao following at the end of May.

The airline expects to rapidly expand its Dreamliner fleet in 2015, with delivery of as many as one per month from February to June 2015.

Scoot aims to retire all six of its Boeing 777-200s, which were handed down from Singapore Airlines, around the middle of 2015 and shift to an all-Boeing 787 in order to parlay the Dreamliner's increased fuel efficiency into a healthier bottom line.

In May this year a spokesperson for Scoot told Australian Business Traveller that "the delivery of Scoot's Dreamliner fleet remains on schedule... we expect to transition to an all 787 fleet by middle of 2015."

Scoot has 20 Boeing 787s on order, split into ten of the original Boeing 787-8 and ten of the larger, longer-range 787-9.

The airline will receive only Boeing 787-9s until the middle of 2015, at which point the first of 10 smaller 787-8s will arrive.

Scoot CEO Campbell Wilson believes the 787s will gives Scoot the flexibility to launch new routes, or add more flights to existing routes, where economics might not favour the larger and less fuel-efficient Boeing 777.

"They're operationally interchangeable so there's no efficiency impact, but the different capacities open more options with respect to network and deployment" Wilson said.

Scoot joins Jetstar as one of the low-cost carriers stumping for the Boeing 787, based on its reduced running costs via lower fuel consumption and longer time between major maintenance checks.

"The economic advantages of this later generation aircraft – including a fuel-burn saving of around 20% per seat – ensure that costs and thus airfares can be kept low so that more people can travel more often" Wilson promised.

Scoot's Boeing 787-9 will be kitted out with 35 'all-leather' premium seats in ScootBiz class, arranged in a 2-3-2 layout.

Each features include an extendable leg-rest and a 'cradle' recline position.

There'll also be AC power sockets for every traveller.

The bulk of the bird will of course be given over to a sea of 340 economy seats in a 3-3-3 configuration, for a total head count – or should that be bum count – of 375.

The standard economy seat is a slimline slab sans headrest.

However, the seats in the extra-legroom Stretch rows and child-free 'Scoot in Silence' cabin will sport adjustable headrests.

Pleasingly, all seats from tip to tail will enjoy access to AC power and "streaming Internet connectivity."

If you're planning a trip with Scoot between now and March 31 2015, book by Monday November 17 and enter the promo code 1YEAROLD for 50% off selected fares.