Boeing 787s | 2012-2014

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Airline - Dhahrani
Aircraft - Boeing 787-8 | A9-VIA
Delivered to Dhahrani, 2012
Livery - Standard 2010
Country - Kingdom of Dhahran

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Airline - Dhahrani
Aircraft - Boeing 787-9 | A9-VJA
Delivered to Dhahrani, 2014
Livery - Standard 2010
Country - Kingdom of Dhahran

In 2012, Dhahrani took delivery of its first 787-8 - one of the first four 787s to be delivered to customers. This represented the next stage in the airline's fleet plan - while the new 777-300ER flagship was meant to gradually replace the A340-600, the smaller A330s would be slowly phased out in favor of 787s. A new iteration of the interior product, vastly superior to anything previously used by the airline, was also introduced on the 787-8 - featuring new fully-enclosed First Class suites and fully-flat Business Class seating, all in a 1-2-1 configuration, creating what at the time became the best First and Business Class in the world. Economy Class was also massively improved. The 787-9 - the first of which, A9-VJA shown here, was delivered in 2014 - was fitted with the same products in all classes. The same new interiors were also quickly refitted to all the A330s in the fleet within approximately two years, and all the 777-300ERs had it by the end of 2015. None of the A340s would, however, get the new products.

The 787-8 was inaugurated on a flight to London, except - the first time this happened for any Dhahrani widebody - this was not to London Heathrow. The inaugural -8 flight was to London Gatwick, which was also the first regular scheduled route the aircraft was operated on, for in 2012 Dhahrani added flights to Gatwick, a once-daily flight to the 'alternative' London airport in addition to the three daily flights to Heathrow. This led to a strange situation, where by far the best of the airline's several different First and Business Class products could only be experienced on flights to Gatwick, but not Heathrow - this was because the 787-8 had too little premium capacity to satisfy demand on the Heathrow route, so the twice-daily A340-600 and once-daily A330-300 (as found on the route in mid-2012) were kept flying to Heathrow. However, as A330s and 777s were reconfigured, and deliveries of 787s continued, this changed, and at the end of 2014 this London arrangement had been altered significantly and was as follows. Heathrow: 777-300ER 2x daily, 787-9 2x daily, and Gatwick: A330-300 1x daily, 787-8 2x daily. This represented a doubling of capacity to London over under three years, accompanied by a huge improvement in hard product quality. Seat maps for some of these aircraft will be shown at a later date.

Apart from London, the 787-8 was heavily used on flights to North and Central Africa, Europe, and the Gulf region, as well as some longer niche routes - for example flights to Perth, which did not justify anything larger. The 787-9, meanwhile, was used all over the world due to its incredible versatility. A few examples include Washington DC, Riyadh, and Sydney. While all 787s were delivered with First Class, the A330s were not so lucky after their reconfiguration process. All of the A330-200s were reconfigured to have only Business Class, as they were now to be used on shorter, less premium-heavy routes, while the A330-300s were about evenly split, with half being fitted with First Class, and the other half only with Business.


Disclaimer: This project is designed to look at the progression of aviation in a more-or-less generic fictional Middle Eastern state. The fictional Kingdom of Dhahran is located near the real Saudi Arabian city called Dhahran, but has no affiliation with it, and the name is a coincidence. Any other similarities to real people, locations, or situations may be intentional. I have zero knowledge of Arabic, so while I have spent considerable time trying to get it right, mistakes are possible, and any advice is greatly appreciated.