After four months of waiting in the wings, the Maharaja’s ‘beached whale’ entered Chennai airspace again on Tuesday, after being cleared to fly by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) and the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA). The huge Boeing 787 or Dreamliner restarted its run from New Delhi to Chennai (AI 439) and made it with ease. It would have also made the return run, carrying an almost full load in its 256 seater cabin.
After being delivered to the national air carrier last year, the massive planes were grounded in a hurry in January 2013, following the burning of a few battery cells in dreamlines in Japan and Boston. Though no incidents were reported with AI’s 6 Dreamliners, all the 787’s across the world were grounded as per a global aviation alert issued by the FAA in America.
Following this movement, Boeing engineers arrived in India and commenced repairs on the planes - replacing the trouble-causing batteries on all the flights and carrying out testing to ensure there were no further issues. After the planes were cleared for flight, they took to the skies plying along the Delhi-Kolkata, Delhi-Bengaluru and Delhi-London route, with the Chennai-New Delhi running beginning from now onward.