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American Airlines and Aviation Partners Boeing Announce First Revenue Flight of a Boeing 767-300ER Featuring Blended Winglets

Written by thomas · Filed Under Commercial 

March 9, 2009

thomas

Annual Fuel Savings of up to 500,000 Gallons Per Aircraft

FORT WORTH, Texas, March 9 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — American Airlines and Aviation Partners Boeing (APB) announced today the first revenue flight of a Boeing 767-300ER with APB’s Blended Winglets(TM). American Flight #78 left Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport Sunday, March 8, at 8:35 p.m. with 204 passengers onboard and arrived ahead of schedule at London Heathrow Airport on Monday, March 9, at 10:26 a.m.

“We are pleased that APB chose to partner with American to develop and install these Blended Winglets, and we are especially happy that we also operated the first flight with customers onboard a winglet-equipped 767-300ER,” said Bob Reding, American’s Executive Vice President – Operations. “The fuel savings and emissions reductions that we will achieve are one more step in our efforts to both moderate costs and shrink the impact we have on our environment – two goals that go hand-in-hand.”

The increased lift provided by the winglets, without a corresponding increase of engine power, improves fuel efficiency. Each airplane equipped with the winglets is expected to save up to 500,000 gallons of fuel annually depending on miles flown, according to APB. American plans to install winglets on its entire 58 aircraft fleet of 767-300ERs, which could result in a total savings of up to 29 million gallons of fuel per year. That represents a significant potential increase to the 111 million gallons of fuel that American currently saves through its Fuel Smart efficiency program.

In addition to the fuel cost savings, this 767-300ER fuel efficiency improvement will result in a reduction of up to 277,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions annually, according to APB. The 11-foot high winglets could also extend the range of an aircraft by as much as 360 nautical miles and improve take-off performance, providing as much as 12,000 pounds of additional payload.

“The 767-300ER Blended Winglets have been the most complicated product development program in the history of Aviation Partners Boeing. We owe a huge debt of gratitude to our launch partner, American Airlines, and our other pre-certification customers for their continued faith in APB and Blended Winglet technology and their patience and support through a challenging certification process. These winglets represent the largest piece of structure ever retrofitted to a commercial aircraft wing and will dramatically change forever both the appearance and performance of the 767-300ER,” said John Reimers,

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