Dreamliner: Thomson confident in Glasgow-USA plane

THOMSON Airways said today it had “every confidence” in the Boeing 787 Dreamliner and the next flight from Glasgow airport would take off as normal to Florida tomorrow, despite two incidents involving Boeing 787s yesterday.
TV's Alesha Dixon with a Thomson Dreamliner. The Boeing aircraft were involved in two separate incidents yesterday. Picture: PATV's Alesha Dixon with a Thomson Dreamliner. The Boeing aircraft were involved in two separate incidents yesterday. Picture: PA
TV's Alesha Dixon with a Thomson Dreamliner. The Boeing aircraft were involved in two separate incidents yesterday. Picture: PA

The airline also said all three of its Dreamliner flights from Gatwick and Manchester today would operate as scheduled.

The news comes after one of its Dreamliners en route to Florida returned to Manchester yesterday because of an undisclosed “technical issue”, dumping fuel as part of normal procedure before landing.

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In a separate incident, an empty Ethiopian Airlines Dreamliner caught fire after being parked at Heathrow for eight hours, which was reported today to relate to the aircraft’s air conditioning system.

Investigators say there is “no direct causal evidence” that the fire is linked to the battery on the 787.

Thomson said its aircraft had returned to Manchester as a “precautionary” measure. It said “a small number of components” were replaced on the plane, which was then fully tested before it took off for Cancun in Mexico this morning.

It said the other two Dreamliners were also fully tested and were due to fly from Gatwick to Sanford in Florida and Palma today.

A spokesman said: “The safety of our customers and crew is of paramount importance to us and we want to reassure our customers that we have every confidence in this aircraft and would never operate it if we weren’t 100 per cent sure of its safety.”

The previous battery faults led to all 50 Dreamliners in service across the world being grounded for three months in January.