The first 787-9 (registration ZK-NZE) has been delivered to Air New Zealand and arrived in Auckland on July 10. On July 25, it flew to Sydney for the first time, presumably for commercial flight training.

@FlyAirNZ @Boeing #787-9 #Dreamliner first time arrival at @SydneyAirport #avgeeks #aviation pic.twitter.com/jmJ2NjRMcP

— Jaryd Stock (@stock_jaryd) July 25, 2014

Its initial commercial operations will begin on August 9, and from November it will be deployed on Japanese routes. According to the official website, by the end of 2014 the 787-9 will be put into service on three routes: Perth in Australia, Shanghai in China, and Tokyo in Japan.

The second 787-9 will be delivered to ANA; this aircraft, registration JA830A, is expected to arrive in Japan on July 29. I really want to go see it if I have time.

【787-9受領☆】 7月27日　日本で初めて受領します。日本到着は7月29日予定。 787-8型機の胴体を延長したモデルで、更に高い燃費性能と約1.2倍の座席と貨物を搭載☆ 詳細→https://t.co/BlvwifwdXQ pic.twitter.com/tFOJXYFIIz

— ANA旅のつぶやき【公式】 (@ANA_travel_info) July 24, 2014

According to the ANA official website, this 787-9 is intended for domestic routes and has a total of 395 seats. It looks quite crowded, so one certainly shouldn’t expect much comfort. I once flew on ANA’s domestic 787-8 and wrote a flight review, and I was deeply impressed by how narrow the seat pitch was.

A rather interesting detail is that both airlines are vigorously promoting themselves as being the first to put the 787-9 into passenger service. For instance, ANA announced plans to operate a passenger sightseeing flight over Mount Fuji on August 4 using the 787-9, departing from and arriving at Haneda Airport, with a flight time of 2 hours. Furthermore, this flight is not open to ticket sales; the participants are elementary school students selected by Boeing and the US Embassy. Consequently, Air New Zealand took a dig at ANA on Twitter, stating that ANA’s charter flight is not a true commercial flight, and that their company’s Auckland to Sydney flight on August 9 is the real world’s first commercial 787-9 flight. Additionally, ANA has not yet officially released its domestic regular operation schedule, so in this sense, the winner should indeed be New Zealand.

July 31 Update: ANA announced that starting August 7, it will use the 787-9 for the Haneda-Fukuoka regular route, reclaiming the title of world’s first. Flight Numbers: ANA241, ANA248, ANA25, ANA30, ANA595, ANA598 http://www.ana.co.jp/pr/14_0709/14-036.html