Thomson Airways MD John Murphy has landed the airline’s first Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner safely at Manchester Airport.

The first of its kind in the Thomson fleet, the plane touched down on Tuesday after flying 3,950 miles across the Atlantic from the Boeing factory in Charleston, South Carolina.

The 787-9 is six metres longer than the 787-8 Dreamliners and includes 45 more seats, enabling it to carry a total of 345 customers to far flung destinations from Jamaica and Dominican Republic to Mexico.

In preparation for Thomson’s rebrand to TUI in the autumn 2017, the aircraft arrived in the new TUI livery.

Murphy, a former RAF pilot, said: “This aircraft is key to expanding our long haul programme.

“We are always looking at new and exciting destinations to offer customers even more holiday choice.

“For this winter we have introduced holidays to Sri Lanka and next summer St Lucia will also be added to our holiday line-up.”

Dreamliners are more environmentally friendly than other aircrafts, using 20% less fuel and the 787-9 can travel a further 830 kilometres in the same energy-efficient manner, to enable the airline to continue delivering a sustainable holiday experience in the air.

Customers will also be able to enjoy all the state-of-art comfort and wellbeing features on-board from bigger windows and mood lighting to reduced cabin altitude, which minimises the effects of jet-lag.

The airline will be taking delivery of up to four 787-9 Dreamliners before June 2019, so there will be nine Boeing 787-8 and five Boeing 787-9 in the fleet.

Thomson is planning to operate the aircraft on short haul routes, before the 787-9 begins flying its long haul routes.

The new aircraft is scheduled to operate its first customer flight from Manchester to Malaga, Spain on July 1, before it commences its regular Manchester to Montego Bay, Jamaica route on July 15.