Latest information from the Air Accident Investigation Branch (ie official source) on the Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 787-8 fire at Heathrow is here.

Darren

So, a different issue then - not battery related?

Personally, I don't think I would want to be parking my backside in a seat to travel any great distance on the Dreamliner until they sort out these issues.... There have been far too many incidents for my liking.

If the 787 had been made in the UK, the Americans would have banned it from their airspace by now.
I can remember what they tried to do with Concorde when she first flew.

Or what the Americans have done with the A380, there has been quite a bit of negativity about upgrading US airports to accommodate the European A380, yet when the B747 was built it wasn't an issue in the US and it was assumed that the world would upgrade its airports to accommodate the 747-100...

I was in Derby this morning and heard the unmistakable sound of a Merlin engine. I looked up and saw a Spitfire following a very large silent plane with British Airways written down the side. It was the infamous Boeing 787 with the fantastic Rolls Royce Trent 1000 engines, it was really quiet.
Derby people are very proud of Rolls Royce and are thrilled that our airline has chosen RR for it's 787s and their A 380s.

Thomson please note, buy British when it is as good or better than others.

No one spotted my deliberate mistake, the Spitfire had a Griffon engine. I was waiting in vain to be castigated!

Qman,

Some did, but some had the mightly RR Merlin too. The BBMF have both the Griffon and Merlin powered Spits.

Darren

Exactly! To know it was a mistake you'd need to know when the one you saw, Qman, was built. My understanding was that the first Spitfires were powered by Rolls Royce Merlin engines and that they didn't start using Griffon engines until 1942. So all those that flew in the Battle of Britain would have had Merlin engines. It's not that I am the plane geek - I leave that to my father and brother who have always referred to the later ones as the 'Griffon variants' so it never occurred to me to correct you.

My Dad, who was 11 years old when the 2nd WW started and later became a member of the Air Cadets, hero worshipped Spitfire pilots and even now waxes lyrical about the Merlin engine powered Spitfire. My brother, though born long after they had stopped flying can still bore anybody other than other geeks with his interminable knowledge of the different variants that the Spitfire evolved through. He even has models of them dotted around his house. Thankfully I didn't fully inherit that particular gene but some facts clearly lodges in the brain after all!

SM

It was the Rolls Royce Spitfire which crashed at EMA last year while landing, it was pilot error. It has been re-built and was flying with the BA 787. It was the Derby Telegraph which said it was the Griffon engine, I didn't know!
There were some terrific photos in the paper of the flight. If I were cleverer on computers I would post them. Maybe a clever person could go on the Derby Telegraph site and download them.
Darren I posted on a rumour site that the BA 787 would look good in the Landor livery, a few minutes later someone posted a picture, terrific!

We flew on the Thomson Dreamliner to Mexico on July 30th and although we had a lovely flight, plenty of leg room spacious and airy, the backs of the seats behind the lap trays were all stained,brown marks like rust or coffee marks,as the plane was only in service for 3 weeks they can't be being cleaned very well.

Sounds like the problem is messy passengers putting up the trays they've spilt tea or coffee on etc! If I spilt something over the tray like that I would automatically wipe it up with a tissue but I guess others don't

SM

No it's not an issue of being cleaned incorrectly or messy passengers. Whilst the aircraft have been operating short haul the seat backs in economy have had a reaction to the cleaning agent in one of the resorts. Thomson Airways have spent a lot of money trying to remove these stains and have Boeing on the case along with several chemist companies dealing in these sort of these problems to no avail.
I occured within 5days of it operating short haul and as each on has visited that destination and been cleaned they have all suffered a similar fate, no other Thomson Airways aircraft has suffed the same reaction, just the dreamliners, and only in economy, not in premium.

Unbelievable! Brand new airliner and nobody thought to do what is advised on every cleaning product I've ever bought, namely to do a test in an unobtrusive place!

SM

Logistically there isn't the time... The reaction too several hours to become apparent but the aircraft only has 1 hour on the ground. Airlines cannot fly a plane, say the day before just to do a surface test on potential cleaners. And it would be equally difficult to fly a seat out to each potential airport for them to clean. No Boeing aircraft have this reaction so there was no reason to suspect the problem occurring.

just booked our seats for December to dom republic row 30 cant wait )

Hi, you must be mega excited can I ask what date in December your leaving and are you going for 2 weeks, I'm going to Mexico on 1st January and I'm just wondering if you can choose seats a bit earlier than 90 days from return date, don't want to miss out

Thanks

Irene

Irene67,

Keep checking from about 92 days before your return date. Seats are sometimes released a day or two before, it's not always exactly on 90 days and they open just after midnight normally if you wanted to get in there first.

Darren

Thanks Darren, great advice as usual.

Irene

We are on the Dreamliner flight TOM109 on 15th Dec 2013 from BGI to MAN.

The prebook flight seats plan on the Thomson website shows the wings in rows different to elsewhere and the whole aircraft of 40 rows as 3-3-3. That is 360 seats.

Which seats are not over the wings and are there any to avoid ie next to the toilets etc please ?