Dreamliner Lands in Iceland on Identification System Issue

A LOT Polish Airlines SA Dreamliner flying to Warsaw from Toronto made an unscheduled landing in Iceland due to a problem with the aircraft's onboard identification system.

The Boeing Co. 787 aircraft landed at the Keflavik airport after Norway denied permission to fly over its airspace because of the faulty system, LOT spokeswoman Barbara Pijanowska-Kuras said by phone today. The identification system sends out information about a plane to air-traffic control staff and helps identify the aircraft in the air. The Polish airline sent two planes to Iceland to transport the passengers, she said.

The state-controlled carrier has bet heavily on the use of Dreamliners to cut costs and help restore the struggling airline to profit. LOT is already in talks with Boeing to get compensation for losses from a three-month global grounding of the Dreamliner fleet over electrical faults earlier this year.

LOT, which currently operates five Dreamliners, reported daily losses of $50,000 from the grounding when its first plane was stranded in Chicago after the inaugural flight.

The incident follows Norwegian Air Shuttle AS's announcement yesterday that it is taking one of its Dreamliner planes out of service for repairs. The company said it will lease an Airbus A340 to ensure all scheduled flights keep running between Scandinavia and the U.S. and Thailand.

Norwegian Air is grappling with technical glitches on the Dreamliner, from cockpit oxygen supply issues that delayed a flight to New York from Oslo on Sept. 22, to brake difficulties that affected a second 787 in Sweden this month. The global fleet of Dreamliners was grounded earlier this year after some batteries on planes operated by Japanese carriers caught fire.