While I was taking a look at the flight cancellations for JL66/65 NRT-SAN-NRT, I noticed that in March there were many more cancellations, but the cancellations were on Tuesdays and so on. Right now, SAN gets JAL on M/W/F, so do these cancellations indicate JAL is increasing flight 66 to almost daily?
airlineroute.net/2013/02/08/jl-san-mar13update2/
Was to be daily from March, now postponed to April.
April seems to be too soon for the 787. It is my estimate that late in June or early july would be a better expectation for daily flights from Tohyo to San Diego. Since the ETOPS certificate for the 787 could be in question for long flights over water, and that there are some rumored restrictions to an hour to 2 hours from an airport. That kind of restriction on ETOPS would jeopardize these flight to SAN by JAL. The US government has said that they want to get the battery problems solved before granted a new airworthy certificate. Also, the US Senate or the House has said that they wish to conduct hearings on the Boeing 787. If federal legislative hearings were to occur, than it could add significant time to the grounded status of these aircraft. Anytime that our federal legislature gets political with something, that should be strictly administrative, then everything balloons out of proportion. April to me sounds like a wish and a hope. June or july is much more pragmatic, but any time table will be regulated by the outcome of Boeing’s battery fix. If any of these aircraft were to have another fire that was significant, then all bets would be off.
Fulframe, I was wondering when someone would say something about the 787 ETOPS certification that is at stake. My guess is that JAL, in the event the 787 loses etops certification, will continue to operate to SAN if they can still make decent profit off the route using the 777.
Also, I edited the title as JAL will be going to SAN on a 357 schedule March 31-May. The people at SAN must really be trying to keep JAL, as the flight has gotten lots of attention; there is even a billboard up near the airport that advertises the flight to NRT with a 787 (it was still up a few days ago).
Glad to hear it was 2 hours ETOPS. I heard major media reports (NEVER a good source of aviation news) indicating the flights would be limited to 2 hours regardless of destination.