British Airways' 787
 

Anyone know the reason for BA substituting their B787 for a B777 on BA93 to YYZ over the last two days? Not another technical glitch is it?

Apparently it's scheduled for a 777 tomorrow too....

G-ZBJD got dinged by a set of engineering steps today, will be out of service for a week or so. Was scheduled to operate the BA 187.

Taking steps...
 

Is it usual for an aircraft to be out of action for a week after a close encounter with a set of steps? :ooh:

Expect someone in ground handling got a roasting. Must have been quite a whack.

Composite vs metal...a small ding with metal will take a short time to fix with speed tape or rivet patch. Composite is a whole different ball game because it's not obvious the extent of the damage.

I have seen 'coupons' of aircraft composite material hit with calibrated tools, for research and test purposes. The side of the strike has barely visible marks but the rear is pretty shocking - separated and splayed fibres! I suspect that the lack of markings on the visible side of an aircraft fuselage has already led to the guilty walking/running/driving away from incidents where they have dinged aircraft with ground equipment! :rolleyes:

But what about the YYZ flights??
 

You'd hope people hadn't walked/run away!

Steps aside, what's happened the Toronto flights?

Surely not hit by steps too? Once is unlucky, twice is careless....

If a slight disagreement with a set of steps results in a whole week (or even just a few days) out of commission for an aircraft while examination/repairs are carried out then composites are potentially going to prove prohibitively expensive in the long term are they not?

Wasn't this the same (barely a month old) aircraft that was hit by a truck at Toronto last week ?

Going back to the OP's question, with one of the four 787s having been out of service since 21 October, the only way that a second Newark 787 rotation could be introduced with the Winter schedule on Sunday would have been to take the aircraft off one of the two Toronto rotations (presumably temporarily).

787 YYZ Oct 21st
 

It sure was. We were stuck at gate while BA and Boeing engineers looked at ultrasound pics for 6 hours. Forward cargo door took the hit that night. Why so many collisions on ramp?

The latest incident occured while the aircraft was parked at the engineering base. There was a big storm in LHR and the wind threw some steps at the aircraft.

Indeed... The steps did not just "bump" into the side of the aircraft, they were thrown against the aircraft during the high winds, with, what I am lead to believe, more than one area of damage.

787 G-ZBJD back in service after its altercation with the set of steps last week. Operated the BA189 to EWR this afternoon.

Champ