A look at All Nippon Airways' 12-year turbulent relationship with Boeing's Dreamliner

All Nippon Airways, the airline that more than any other has been wedded to Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner, renewed its vows on Friday.

By finalizing an order for three 787-10s, the largest of the three 787 models, All Nippon cemented its commitment to the Dreamliner, and will become the first Asian airline to operate all three models of the plane. United Airlines and British Airways also have ordered all three models.

All Nippon operates 34 Dreamliners, the largest fleet of 787s in the world, and so far has signed firm orders for a total of 83 of the planes.

The relationship between All Nippon Airways and Boeing has been tested and strained during the long and often-painful development of the 787, going back long before the first strand of carbon fiber was applied.

Back in 2003, when the aircraft was still called the 7E7, All Nippon top executives came close to upending Boeing’s plans to build the aircraft from carbon composites when they balked at becoming the launch customer.

Back in 2006, All Nippon leaders expressed doubt that the carbon composite hull fuselage could stand up to the rigors of airport usage. Boeing sales people finally solved this issue by bringing an 18-square-foot section of the fuselage to All Nippon headquarters in Tokyo, where ANA executives fruitlessly tried to destroy it with sledge hammers and steel punches.

But the problems hardly stopped then, because All Nippon had to wait three years more than it expected to receive its first 787s, a delay that Boeing only somewhat mollified by selling them some less-desirable 767s at bargain prices.

Boeing delivered the very first 787 to ANA on Sept. 26, 2011 to great fanfare, but the aircraft was overweight, and the outside ceremony was deluged by rain.

In a remarkably candid and public statement, ANA president and CEO Shinichiro Ito politely told the press his displeasure.

“Weight is much heavier than later-coming delivery,” he said. “For those aircraft, we will take the option to use those aircraft for domestic short-haul operations.”

The problems didn’t stop, and ANA by February 2013, had to ground its entire fleet of Dreamliners– which, by then, was the largest in the world – for three months as Boeing worked through its problems with overheating lithium ion batteries.

But unlike competitor Japan Airlines, which bolted from the Boeing fold and ordered 31 Airbus A350s in October 2013, ANA hasn’t left Boeing’s side.

Boeing Commercial Airplanes CEO Ray Conner, who has shown understanding of Japanese culture and who went to Tokyo to publicly apologize for the battery problems, expressed appreciation for the new order.

"We truly appreciate ANA’s confidence in the 787,” Conner said in a statement. “And this order further demonstrates our decades-long partnership with ANA.”

(Steve Wilhelm - The Puget Sound Business Journal)