It seems that there is a flight number out there for the delivery flight of the first Boeing 787 Dreamliner to United Airlines. Not sure how he noticed it but Stephan stumbled upon this gem today. Looking at the United flight status page there’s a scheduled operation from Boeing Field to Houston, likely the delivery route:
The flight number isn’t part of any assigned block for regular operations so that makes a bit of sense. And looking at the seat map it seems pretty clear that this is a 787, even though the website doesn’t have those details loaded in yet:
It is a bit surprising that 27A/L, the window seats at the exit row behind the wing, are not flagged as E+. I wonder if the escape slide protrudes too much into the legroom area for those seats to have extra space.
The plane doesn’t seem to be in the air yet. Normally the status site would show an actual departure time rather than just estimated if the plane is in the air. Plus none of the flight tracking sites I’ve checked have it showing. But this definitely sees United another step closer to taking delivery of the plane.
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Very exciting. I’m hoping they promote it some in advance, as I know some Houston airplane geeks would turn out to see it land at IAH!
I was stuck in 33A (I think) “E+” SYD-SFO a few years back. Exit slide protruded by like a foot, so I had hardly any legroom for my left leg (less than RJ economy, IIRC). Why they called that E+, I don’t know, but I’m alive to tell the story, so that’s a Plus.
I have a flight on the 787 on 12/15 from SFO to IAH ; both 27 window seats are in white are do not appear to be E+
Keep track on UA7708…my friend in ops just said that will be the flight number for all non-rev flights until they put into service.