Virgin Atlantic launches first Dreamliner route

Virgin Atlantic launched its first Dreamliner route on Tuesday, flying its new 787-9 from London Heathrow to Boston and back.

The carrier's Dreamliner made its debut on Virgin Atlantic Flight 11, which departed London Heathrow at 5:42 p.m. and landed at Boston Logan International at 8:48 p.m., all times local. The Dreamliner then returned to London on Virgin Atlantic Flight 12, which took off from Boston at 11:30 p.m. and touched down in London at 9:50 a.m. Wednesday morning, all times local.

The flights marked Virgin Atlantic's first-ever Dreamliner flights with paying passengers. After debuting its first 787-9 on its Boston-London route, Virgin Atlantic also plans to put Dreamliners on routes to Washington Dulles, New York JFK and Newark Liberty in the coming months.

All told, Virgin Atlantic has 21 Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners in order. Boeing's new-age long-haul jet will make up about half of Virgin Atlantic's fleet once the airline receives all the 787-9s it has on order.

"It is safe to call it a flagship aircraft for Virgin Atlantic," Craig Kreeger, the carrier's CEO, told Today in the Sky on Friday (Oct. 25) onboard the aircraft in Atlanta.

Virgin Atlantic has not yet announced plans to use the Dreamliner for its Atlanta service — the carrier began its first Atlanta flights on Sunday (Oct. 26) using Airbus A330s. But the airline flew its first Boeing 787 to the city on a special flight last week to show off the aircraft in the hometown of its new partner Delta, which purchased a 49% stake in the carrier in a deal that closed last year.

As for Virgin Atlantic, Kreeger says the Dreamliner will be a key element for the carrier to return to profitability. Virgin Atlantic has lost money in four of the past five years, according to CAPA Centre for Aviation. Yet Kreeger said he expects that to change this year.

"There is a sort of a line-in-the-sand moment that this aircraft represents for us," Kreeger said, referring to the 787-9. "It represents, in my mind, the transition from our recovery mode to the future. And this airplane is going to be such a big part of that transition over the next several years."

Virgin Atlantic intends to use its fuel-efficient Dreamliners to replace its aging and fuel-guzzling four-engine Airbus A340s, as well as some of its Boeing 747s, which also have four engines.

"As we go from having zero 787s to 21 … the result of that is we go from having an average-aged fleet of fuel-inefficient airplanes to a really young fleet of great fuel-efficient and environmentally (friendly) airplanes," Kreeger says. "I think is very consistent, from a customer service standpoint of what we want to offer. And, from a cost standpoint, (it's) about what can make us successful."

British entrepreneur Richard Branson, who founded Virgin Atlantic three decades ago and remains the company's majority owner praised his airline's newest aircraft.

"They just got every single little detail right," Branson told Today in the Sky on Friday from inside the Dreamliner at the same event in Atlanta. It smells good, looks good. The lighting, the seating, the ambience, the entertainment systems, the toilet — I mean everything is just brilliant."