American Airlines’ new Boeing 787-9 deliveries with the new Flagship Suite seats began operating last week. So far, they’ve been flying between Chicago and Los Angeles and Chicago and London, and they’ll eventually operate flights between Philadelphia and London starting in August once the airline receives more deliveries.
One of its aircraft, however, has been plagued with maintenance issues and delays so far. That’s N846AN, which was the first of American’s new Boeing 787-9 deliveries.
I followed its delivery flight last month on Flightradar24, and I don’t recall notable issues then. But here’s a look at its performance so far:
Yeah, not exactly ideal.
The story begins in Dallas. N846AN was first scheduled to head up to Chicago on June 4th to start its service. However, the plane quickly diverted back to DFW shortly after takeoff.
The aircraft made it to DFW the next day, but the inaugural flight from Chicago to Los Angeles was operated by N845MD instead.
N846AN was then scheduled to fly from Chicago to LAX on June 6th, but that flight got cancelled, due to the same maintenance issues. The return flight from LAX to Chicago also got cancelled.
The plane did make it to LAX the next day, on June 7th. But the return flight to Chicago later that day got cancelled again, and it has sat in LAX since.
Aviation watchdog JonNYC mentioned that American seems to be working on some door issue with N846AN. It appears to be related to the door seals.
The airline seems to have mostly finished work on this door issue. Still though, the aircraft does not have a scheduled flight at this time.
This is what that very first flight looked like, the June 4th flight that diverted back to DFW. The aircraft stopped climbing at around 19,000 feet, turned around, and landed about an hour after takeoff.
Whatever the issue is, this seems to be something the airline is able to spot on the ground. I’ll add that aircraft mechanics is not my area of expertise, so I’ll leave the technical discussions and implications of such a door issue to those with knowledge.
That said, I think the notable part of N846AN’s story is the fact that it’s brand new. It’s not uncommon for an aircraft to go through stretches of difficult operations due to a lingering maintenance issue.
Take N819AN, a 7 year old American Airlines Boeing 787-8. This aircraft went through a rough stretch with a maintenance issue earlier this year, with 4 diversions in a span of a month, in addition to weeks on the ground after being ferried to DFW.
There was something clearly wrong with the plane, and it took time for American to address it. The aircraft is flying just fine today, servicing international destinations every day. Strethces like this happen with a handful of aircraft all the time.
The difference with N846AN though, is that this is a brand new airplane delivered from Boeing just over a month ago. One has to wonder if this stems from an issue in the manufacturing process at Boeing, or if something arose during the month on the ground in DFW after delivery. We’ll have to see what comes out of this, but I do think that the aircraft will turn out fine once they get it fixed.
Either way, it’ll be interesting to see how this aircraft performs once it’s back in the air.
Featured image by the author. Yeah, I know it’s not N846AN and is a random photo of an American 787-9 I took at JFK instead. But forgive me, the plane’s barely operated flights so far with this maintenance issue. 🥴
