TOKYO January 13, 2012 - ANA, Japan’s biggest airline and the launch customer for the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, will this weekend celebrate carrying more than 100,000 passengers on this innovative airliner since services began two months ago.

ANA expects to reach the passenger landmark when Flight NH686 takes off from Hiroshima airport bound for Haneda on Sunday, 15 January.

The success of the Dreamliner, which entered service with ANA on two domestic routes on 1 November last year, is further underlined by the very high number of seats being filled on the routes being flown by the 787.

Load factors on ANA’s 787 routes to Okayama and Hiroshima have reached approximately 88%, compared to 72.2% for all ANA services operating between Haneda and these two destinations and 67.7% over the same period a year earlier.

ANA, which has ordered a total of 55 Dreamliners, will launch its first scheduled international routes using the 787 this month, with services commencing to Beijing on Saturday, 14 January and to Frankfurt on 21 January.

The inaugural Dreamliner flight from Haneda to Frankfurt is almost full and reservations for the rest of January are currently at the high rate of 78.8%. ANA will initially operate three Dreamliner services a week to Frankfurt and will trial the 787 on the Tokyo-Beijing route during January.

The reliability of the 787 has been as impressive as customer demand with 96.3% of scheduled Dreamliner departures having left on time compared to an ANA group average of 96.5% for the same period.