So in my prior post I noted that I would be boarding a Boeing 777. That observation turned out to be wrong. The plane was a Boeing 787 "Dreamliner", the newest flag ship of Boeing, currently on production lines in Everett, Washington which I've had the opportunity to tour.
I am typing this as we are getting prepared to land in Tokyo in this beautiful aircraft. At first glance, it looks rather typical with 3-3-3 seating -- but its most noteworthy upgrade is the windows that can be electronically dimmable from regular/clear through many stages of beautiful, blue tinting. These windows provided a translucent spaciousness to the artificially created "night" flying as we continued our journey in full daylight -- outpacing the setting sun as we crossed the international date line. These windows, the spacious "touchless" flushing toilets, the quickly responding, updated entertainment system at each chair and the large, overhead storage bins are great improvements. And I just learned from reading the Wiki article I linked above that All Nippon (ANA) was the launch airline for this new aircraft with commercial service introduced in October 2011 and as of last month Boeing had orders for 1139 of them from 62 customers -- with All Nippon having ordered the most (82). On the negative side, it's also the aircraft that has suffered some widely publicized lithium battery fires that caused its grounding in 2013.
The plane was not full -- perhaps another reason I got a cheap seat - and I got to know my seat mate -- a 33 year old Chinese guy born and raised in Vancouver, Canada who makes his living by teaching ball room dancing. I've not met very many people in my travels who can volley answers into questions, to refocus the conversation like I usually try to do -- but he was adept at it. I enjoyed a long conversation that finally gave way to getting a little shut-eye in between two good meals.
And I should also also update my prior rant about security: All Nippon flight attendants at boarding did finally closely compare boarding pass to passport -- so I'm guessing it's just a different process in Canada with the airline having responsibility for this identification rather than Government employed TSA security, the way it is done in the USA.
