Just before midday, the shiny new aircraft arrived at its new base at London’s Heathrow Airport (LHR). The plane, registered as G-ZBLA, took off from Boeing in Charleston, South Carolina, (CHS) at 11:37 p.m. as flight BA915 on Saturday evening and flew the 4,064 miles (6,541km) to LHR, where it landed at 11:49 a.m. on Sunday morning.
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The airline was originally supposed to take delivery of the first of its 12 new Dreamliners months ago, with the first passenger flight originally scheduled for February 2020. Because of the coronavirus pandemic, those plans were delayed. The airline was then scheduled to take delivery of G-ZBLA on May 21, however, that was also delayed.
The original plan was to start flights to Atlanta (ATL), followed by Dallas (DFW) and then Nashville (BNA), but this is likely to have changed because of ongoing complications related to the coronavirus outbreak.
The aircraft, which is the longest variant of the Dreamliner, features eight seats in First, 48 seats in Club Suite, 35 in World Traveller Plus (premium economy) and 165 World Traveller (economy). This will be the only variant of the airline’s fleet of Dreamliners that features the new Club Suite, which was first brought to service on the arrival of the airline’s first A350 in July 2019.
Related: The 787 Dreamliner: What are the differences between a -8, -9 and -10?
